Oral Answers to Questions

EDUCATION AND SKILLS

The Secretary of State was asked—

FE Colleges

Kitty Ussher: What plans he has to ensure that further education colleges are able to respond to demand for skills.

Bill Rammell: We have invested heavily in further education to ensure that colleges are able to respond to the demand for skills. The further education White Paper sets out a major programme of reforms to transform the FE system. Those reforms renew the economic mission for FE, make plain its central role in equipping young people and adults for productive employment, and put the interests of learners and employers at the heart of the system. Many of the reforms are being taken forward in the Further Education and Training Bill.

Kitty Ussher: I am grateful to the Minister for that response. In Burnley, we have double the national average of people employed in manufacturing, yet employers tell me that they find it hard to find the skills they need. I am sure that the bid currently before the Higher Education Funding Council for a new university faculty specialising in engineering will help, if approved, but will my hon. Friend confirm that he will also allow colleges to offer foundation degrees in response to employer demand without a complex and lengthy accreditation procedure?

Bill Rammell: I pay tribute to my hon. Friend's commitment in working with her local college. Part of the way in which we face up to the skills challenge that she has outlined is through the train to gain initiative. The capital project involving a new further and higher education centre, which she has strongly supported, is going through the approvals process. I strongly welcome her support for the right of high-quality, high-performing further education colleges to be able to award their own foundation degrees. There will be a very robust quality assurance system. In order to face up to the significant skills challenges that we face, we need as much flexibility and innovation in the system as possible, and this measure will certainly help.

Nigel Evans: The Government are talking about making it compulsory for 16 to 18-year-olds to stay on in full-time education, but for many of them it will be a cruel and unusual punishment unless they get the relevant tuition that they need. What will the Minister do to ensure that there are sufficient numbers of teachers in places of higher and further education so that those young people can learn the skills that they need, and we need, for the future in areas such as plumbing, bricklaying and electrical work?

Bill Rammell: I take it that that was partly a speech in support of the ideas that we are considering as regards what happens to young people up to the age of 18. It is important to make it clear that we are not proposing that they should be forced to stay in school until the age of 18 if it is not in their interests. However, there is arguably a strong case for saying that people need to retain a commitment to and involvement in education and training, whether part-time or full-time, through to the age of 18. I agree that we need as many teachers as possible covering a range of disciplines, although I have to say to the hon. Gentleman that the fact that we have increased funding in the further education sector by 50 per cent. in real terms in the past 10 years, in stark contrast to what went before, is helping us to do that.

Bob Blizzard: I know that my hon. Friend is familiar with Lowestoft college, which has four centres of vocational excellence, worked with more than 550 employers last year and has 288 apprentices. The college wholeheartedly welcomes the Leitch report and wants to be part of inspiring people as well as providing training, but it questions whether, with train to gain in its infancy, we can get to a fully demand-led system as soon as 2010.

Bill Rammell: My hon. Friend the Minister for Schools just whispered to me that it is a good day to hear from Mr. Blizzard, but I could not possibly comment on that.
	I strongly agree that some very positive work is being done at Lowestoft college, which I visited last year with my hon. Friend. Getting to a fully demand-led system is a creditable ambition, because this is about ensuring that the qualifications and courses that are provided are genuinely what employers want. We have set out an ambition for the majority of that to be in place by 2015. The Leitch review contains a more ambitious set of proposals. We are considering those and will respond around the time of the comprehensive spending review later this year.

John Hayes: The Minister knows of my personal commitment and that of my party to our further education colleges, which do so much good for so many. He also knows of the Opposition's constructive approach to foundation degree-awarding powers. However, will he reconsider the need to ensure FE-HE links through statutory articulation agreements; to guarantee rigour with appropriate parliamentary scrutiny; and to pledge that the matter will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis after an agreed period of time? Further education deserves to be treated as grown up and universities deserve to know that degrees will rigorously teach and test genuine competence.

Bill Rammell: I genuinely welcome the hon. Gentleman's constructive approach and that of Opposition Front Benchers to the important issue. There is a joint recognition that we need as much flexibility in the system as possible to confront our significant skills challenge. We have already set out in the House of Lords the robust quality assurance mechanism. The articulation agreements, which will ensure that no further education college can go it alone and that there has to be a relationship with a university, are a key part of the proposal. As the hon. Gentleman knows, I shall write to Members in the other place shortly before the Bill is before the House on Report. I hope that he will then realise that we have tackled the concerns that he and others have expressed.

Pupil Funding

Andrew Robathan: What the average funding per school pupil will be in (a) Leicestershire and (b) England in 2007-08; and if he will make a statement.

Jim Knight: The school funding settlement for 2006 to 2008, announced in December 2005, gives Leicestershire a guaranteed unit of funding per pupil through the dedicated schools grant of £3,429 for 2007-08, which is a real-terms increase of a third since 1997. The England average is £3,888, which is a real-terms increase under the Government of just below 40 per cent.

Andrew Robathan: Yet again, Leicestershire comes bottom for funding in shire education authorities. The education of a child in Leicester city, just a few yards across the Braunstone lane from my constituency, is apparently worth £542 more than that of a child in my constituency in Braunstone town—if my maths is right, and I believe that it is. I took a delegation to see the right hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke) when he was Education Secretary to complain about that. He said that that must never happen again, but it has. When will the Government produce a much more level playing field? What do they have against Leicestershire pupils?

Jim Knight: Naturally, we have nothing against Leicestershire, Somerset or even Dorset people. We ensure that funding is allocated on the basis of need, but we give deprivation priority. I note that the hon. Gentleman is interested in taking money away from Leicester to give it to others in Leicestershire. That is the logic of his comments. I presume that he would want similar redistribution in Birmingham and other areas around the country. We are examining the matter carefully. I note his interest and his points, but we need to reflect deprivation in funding settlements to give every child the best possible start.

David Taylor: I declare an interest as a governor of Ibstock community college and of Ashby school. Of course, those schools and others would like a better deal from school funding. However, did not Gareth Williams, the director of children and young people's services at the Conservative-controlled county council, explode the myth about Leicestershire's position when he said that it was funded somewhere near the average and that educational achievement and funding at the margin are not especially linked?
	Will my hon. Friend the Minister accept an invitation to Ashby school, where I used to chair the governing body, to examine the quality of education that is available in our county from the money that we receive?

Jim Knight: My hon. Friend makes some important points and I agree with him. I shall examine my diary sympathetically and discuss ways in which I can respond positively to his warm invitation.

Michael Fabricant: Staffordshire does not do as badly as the county that my hon. Friend the Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan) represents, but it is still 132nd in funding out of 149 local education authorities. Does the Minister understand the frustration of people in Staffordshire and other counties when there is no clarity about the way in which the scale is calculated? It is especially frustrating because Labour candidates in Staffordshire in 1997 promised equal funding throughout England, apart from Greater London, for all pupils. That promise has clearly been broken.

Jim Knight: The hon. Gentleman should know that we promised to increase radically and improve the amount of funding available to our schools. We have fulfilled that promise for the people of Staffordshire. The increase in real terms under the Government for schools in Staffordshire is 39.1 per cent. It is 88th out of 148 in respect of the increase in education funding. I am sure that he welcomes that.

Louise Ellman: Will my hon. Friend confirm the major real-terms increase in funding for the Liverpool education authority? Is he satisfied that the funding is being used to tackle under-achievement, including among Somali and Yemeni children?

Jim Knight: I certainly can confirm that increase. The statistic involved is a 43.6 per cent. real-terms increase for the young people of Liverpool. We are looking closely at the local education authority's performance in delivering for all the young people, including those from the ethnic groups that my hon. Friend mentioned. Indeed, I had a meeting with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Children and Families, and others, last week, at which we had a detailed discussion on some of the improvements that Liverpool is making. We want to work closely, through the Government office, to support it in dealing with all children in Liverpool.

Nicholas Winterton: My hon. Friend the Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan) has raised an important point. There is a huge differential between the allocation of resources to schools in towns and cities and schools in shire counties. Does the Minister agree that, if deprivation is to be recognised, it should be recognised through a different form of funding rather than through education funding? Surely it is only right that every child in this country, whether at primary or secondary level, should receive the same sum. Deprivation can be reflected through other funding. The Cheshire schools funding forum has recently met, and it is deeply concerned about what appears to be the discrimination against the children in the county of Cheshire, which does have areas of high deprivation.

Jim Knight: I am well aware of that. My hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller) has spoken to me at some length on behalf of his constituents about the levels of deprivation in his area. Cheshire has had a 38.7 per cent. real-terms increase in school funding over the past 10 years. As I look at the next funding round, I want to ensure that the money that we rightly allocate in respect of deprivation and disadvantage—which are important determinants of education outcomes—finds its way to the schools that need it within the authorities. In that way, those schools in the more deprived areas of Cheshire that really need the funding will receive it.

ESOL Funding

Andrew Love: If he will make a statement on reform of funding of English for speakers of other languages provision.

Bill Rammell: Since 2001, almost 2 million people have taken up the opportunity to improve their English language skills through the Skills for Life strategy. Changes set out in the Learning and Skills Council's annual statement of priorities in October 2006 will build on that success by focusing funding more effectively, through full fee remission, on vulnerable learners most in need of taxpayers' support. The Government will continue to make a significant contribution to fees for others.

Andrew Love: Although I understand the rationale behind that policy, may I make a plea for flexibility? My hon. Friend will be aware that many asylum seekers have to wait much longer than the minimum period to get their status resolved. There are also many immigrants earning the minimum wage in low-skilled jobs who find it extremely difficult to pay for the courses. Will my hon. Friend allow some flexibility in the policy in recognition of those constraints?

Bill Rammell: I understand the point that my hon. Friend is making. It is clear, however, that the present situation is unsustainable. We have seen a tripling of numbers and a tripling of funding. If we simply go on increasing the budget, it will hit other elements of the Skills for Life programme. On asylum seekers, 80 per cent. of claims are now being dealt with within eight weeks, so it cannot be seen as a public funding priority to continue to fund learning for those who will not have the opportunity to remain in the United Kingdom.
	On my hon. Friend's other point, we have consulted widely as part of the race equality impact assessment, and I have met representatives of the Refugee Council and trade unions. I am trying to determine whether there is another indicator of low income besides the working tax credit that we could use to determine low income, in order to enable people to access free provision. It is also important to make it clear that, when the changes come through, people on low incomes will still get free ESOL provision. I estimate that that will involve at least 50 per cent. of the current cohort.

Michael Gove: The Minister will be aware that earlier this week the Secretary of State stressed the importance of Britishness in the national curriculum. This country benefits hugely from an influx of new citizens who contribute immensely to the national health service, other public services and economic growth, but one of the barriers to effective social cohesion is the mastery of the English language. How can we promote social cohesion and build a successful multicultural Britain when there are constraints on the spending that would enable people to speak our shared, common language?

Bill Rammell: I agree that it is important for us to give people opportunities to learn, study and understand English, for the purpose of community cohesion and for many other reasons. That is why we have tripled the budget and the numbers since 2001. However, the present situation is unsustainable, as the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education has pointed out. We need to make a change.
	I must say that I find the Opposition's position inexplicable. They appear to be advocating an uneven playing field—

Mr. Speaker: Order. What they appear to be doing is nothing to do with the Minister.

Ann Cryer: Is my hon. Friend aware that our ethnic communities already have to achieve a certain level of English to acquire citizenship, and that from April they will have to achieve a certain level of English to secure indefinite leave to remain? I agree that we cannot go on and on increasing the number of places, but we do not want people to be sent away because they do not speak English when there is nowhere for them to learn it.

Bill Rammell: I take my hon. Friend's comments seriously, because I know that she has spent a great deal of time working on the issue, but the impact of the current unsustainable position is that in parts of the country people are having to wait for as long as two years to obtain a place on an ESOL programme, and the most vulnerable individuals are losing out most. The changes we are making are intended to ensure that such people gain access to provision. However, as part of the race equality impact assessment and in response to points that have been made to me, I am considering a number of ways of ensuring that the most vulnerable are genuinely protected.

Philip Hollobone: Is it a good thing or a bad thing that one in eight primary school pupils in England does not have English as a first language? If it is a good thing, why is English tuition not being properly funded? If it is a bad thing, why has the situation been allowed to develop?

Bill Rammell: The argument that English tuition is not being properly funded simply does not bear scrutiny. We have significantly increased provision both in ESOL and in schools.
	The position of the Opposition parties lacks credibility. Given that the Conservative party is committed to £21 billion-worth of public spending cuts, I do not see how it would be able—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Minister should take advice from the Chair while the Speaker is in a good mood.

Keith Vaz: I am sorry to tell the Minister that I think that the position of the Government lacks credibility. The hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) and my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mrs. Cryer) are absolutely right. The Government cannot change the rules and say that people need to speak good English to become British citizens and must pay huge fees to the Home Office, and then deny them access to the very funds that will allow them to learn English adequately. Will the Minister please reconsider? Will he meet Members who have constituency interests in the matter—and those who may not, but who understand the principle—and review the Government's policy?

Bill Rammell: If my right hon. Friend wants to discuss the issues with me, I am certainly prepared to meet him. I have already been meeting Members on an ongoing basis and discussing the proposals with them in detail. Let me make it clear, however, that every learner will continue to receive Government funding to the tune of 62.5 per cent. of the costs of the course, and that more than 50 per cent. of the current cohort will have continuing access to free provision. At present those in the greatest need—some of whom are probably in my right hon. Friend's constituency—are having to wait for 18 months for access to the courses, and I do not think that we can allow that to continue.

14-19 Diploma

Jim Cunningham: What progress has been made on the introduction of the 14-19 diploma programme.

Alan Johnson: Having met the milestones for development of the new diploma qualifications that we published in the 14-19 education and skills implementation plan, we are on track for diploma courses to be provided for the first time from September 2008.

Jim Cunningham: Does my right hon. Friend agree that business and industry should help to deliver the diploma for 14 to 19-year-olds, particularly in the manufacturing sector and particularly in the west midlands?

Alan Johnson: My hon. Friend is an engineer and takes a great interest in these issues. We already have more than 300,000 businesses engaged with schools and helping to give some aptitude for working in industry. On the diploma, we will now have for the first time in this country the mixed vocational and academic course—providing a mix of theoretical and practical knowledge—that many other countries in Europe and around the world have had for many years. I agree with my hon. Friend about the importance of involving businesses. We have had a tremendous amount of interest in developing the diplomas, because they are industry-driven, through the sector skills councils. There can be no complaint about the enthusiasm and involvement of industries throughout the country.

Barry Sheerman: Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is enormous enthusiasm in the sector—in colleges and schools, as well as among employers—to make the new diplomas a success? However, a visit by the Select Committee on Education and Skills to Lewisham college only this week—and my own personal visit to a Huddersfield further education college—found that there were still worries and concerns about the level of preparedness for getting them up and running at high quality on time. I know that we now have four champions behind them, but there is still a worry. Will my right hon. Friend give me a guarantee that we will provide new resources and put new energy into the Department to make them a success?

Alan Johnson: My hon. Friend's Committee is currently conducting an inquiry into the matter, and we would be grateful to discover the outcome of it. The qualification is tremendously fragile in that we have to get the first five diplomas up and running by 2008. That is a challenge, but we are putting energy, drive and commitment into meeting it—which is what my hon. Friend suggests we do. We are determined that, through the process we have introduced, we will be ready with those first five diplomas by 2008. No information has so far come before me that suggests that we are anything other than on track to achieve that. However, we always need the gentle persuasion of the Select Committee to ensure that we are on the right track. I welcome the interest of my hon. Friend and others, but I think that we will be okay by 2008.

Leitch Report

Tony Baldry: If he will make a statement on the findings of the Leitch report on skills.

Alan Johnson: Lord Leitch's final report, "Prosperity for all in the Global Economy—World Class Skills", published in December 2006, gave a clear analysis of the future skills needs of the UK. It presented a substantial challenge to ensure that UK skills levels are world class by 2020. We have welcomed the report's ambitions and recommendations, and we will publish an implementation plan to take forward the agenda in the context of the comprehensive spending review settlement.

Tony Baldry: I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. Is he aware that towns such as Banbury and Bicester need a skills centre—a one-stop location where employers and those who want to acquire skills can get information on initiatives such as the post-16 diplomas, train to gain, apprenticeships and adult skills training in general? The vast majority of businesses on the M40 corridor are small or medium-sized employers. They want a highly skilled work force and to compete in the world, but they need to be able to get targeted information on how they can link in to all the various Government initiatives.

Alan Johnson: The hon. Gentleman is right, but the exciting development has been train to gain; I refer Members to Lord Leitch's report. We are using descriptions that the public might not understand, but the idea behind train to gain is to assist small businesses, which is where a particular problem lies in that they do not have the time to access lots of volumes of information in order to find out how to solve their skills problems. Under train to gain, we have trained brokers who meet small businesses to discuss their skills needs and then return with a skills package. That means that small businesses do not need to chase all over town to find the necessary information. train to gain is in its early stages, but it has been hugely successful. One of the most important of Lord Leitch's recommendations is that all level 2 and level 3 provision should go through train to gain.

David Willetts: Does the Secretary of State agree with Lord Leitch, who said in his report that
	"Many employers complain that the apprenticeship process is complex and bureaucratic. Government must take action to improve completion rates"?
	Is it not shocking that only 41 per cent. of people under 18 and only 38 per cent. of people over 18 successfully complete their apprenticeships? Does that not tell us that many employers and employees do not find apprenticeships valuable? It is no good focusing on start rates if we have such low successful completion rates.

Alan Johnson: That question is relevant now, but it would have been more relevant a year ago, when the apprenticeship drop-out rate was extremely worrying. One reason for that drop-out rate—there have always been people who drop out of apprenticeships—is that some youngsters give up their apprenticeships to take jobs, sometimes in the same company. However, there has been a huge increase—about 15 per cent.—in the apprenticeship completion rate. Lord Leitch recognises the improvements that have been made and that we have increased the number of apprenticeships from 75,000—the figure when we came into government—to 250,000. He is right to say that we should work to ensure that bureaucracy does not get in the way of apprenticeships, but he also says that we should pledge that any youngster who is qualified and interested in taking on an apprenticeship should have a guaranteed place. He says that we need to reach the figure of 500,000 apprenticeships by 2020, and we agree. In putting that in place, we will examine the bureaucracy issue, but we are already tackling the problem of high drop-out rates and seeing stark and real improvements.

Vincent Cable: Can the Secretary of State explain the link between Leitch and his own declared preference for compulsion in post-16 training and education, bearing in mind that many young people may well prefer full-time work as the best mechanism for acquiring experience, disciplines and work-based skill?

Alan Johnson: One clear link is that Leitch himself says that we should look at lifting the education leaving age—it is wrong to call it the school leaving age—once the diplomas that my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, South (Mr. Cunningham) referred to, which according to the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority are the most dramatic and revolutionary change in education in the world, are in place by 2013. The point that the hon. Gentleman makes is right, and it is why we believe that youngsters aged 16 and 17 can be in the workplace, but at that age they should not receive no education or training whatever. They should not be divorced from the world of education at such a young age. Leitch tells us—this is the other link—that by 2020, the number of jobs that require no qualifications will have shrunk from 3.6 million to just 600,000, which is the current number of vacancies in the economy. So both those factors link the Leitch report to the debate that we will have about lifting the education leaving age.

Academy Schools

Karen Buck: What assessment he has made of the scope for extended school provision with the academy schools programme.

Parmjit Dhanda: Academies form part of the local family of schools and are at the heart of their communities. We hope that they will play a full part in offering extended services.

Karen Buck: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. Extended schools are proving their worth in terms of community links and improving attendance and attainment. Nowhere is that more important than in academy schools such as those in my constituency, which serve exceptionally deprived populations. The Westminster academy will be located in a ward in which 83 per cent. of all children live in workless households. Does my hon. Friend not agree with me that it is therefore extraordinary that existing academy schools have to pay VAT on their community activities? That is an additional financial penalty and an obstacle to their providing precisely the extended sports, drama and other facilities that those communities desperately need. Will my hon. Friend please sort out the situation immediately?

Parmjit Dhanda: I am very much aware of the difference that the extended schools activities in my hon. Friend's locality are making—I gather that more than 60 local activities are being delivered through extended schools—and she is right to highlight that point. She is also right to make the point about VAT—an issue on which she has previously had an Adjournment debate. It is an anomaly that we need to work through, and our officials are engaged in that process. I have become immersed in the issue in the past 24 hours and have got to know more about VAT and schools than I ever thought I would. This is an incredibly technical and complex subject, concerning paid-for activities in new buildings such as city academies, which have charitable status.
	It involves those activities that form more than 10 per cent. of the business usage, of the school day or of the area used of a school. We are taking a close look at the issue and I assure my hon. Friend that we will continue to work with Treasury officials to get it sorted out as soon as possible.

Henry Bellingham: Is the Minister aware that Park high school in Gaywood in my constituency is considering relocating and reopening as a city academy school on a new development in South Lynn? That is obviously an exciting development, but it will be a long and complex process. Will the Minister agree to meet me, the chairman of governors and someone from the local education authority to discuss the project?

Parmjit Dhanda: I am delighted to hear of the hon. Gentleman's support for city academies, which is understandable. Places in city academies are three times oversubscribed—three applicants for every place—and they are seeing a sixfold improvement in GCSE results. City academies are doing some 20 per cent. better than the schools that they replaced, so I can understand why the hon. Gentleman supports the principle. Whether I meet him or whether I know a man who will—probably Lord Adonis, who has responsibility for city academies—I am sure that it will be possible. I expect that they will be able to correspond with each other to help to make that happen.

Diana Johnson: Does the building schools for the future programme provide that all schools that are rebuilt or refurbished have to make sufficient provision for extended school activities?

Parmjit Dhanda: I am told that such schools are expected to have 500 sq m for community provision, so the answer is yes. As highlighted already by my hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck), a range of activities and extended services are taking place in city academies, involving not only pupils but their parents. I am sure that we will see more such activity in the future as we roll out the city academies programme. Our target is to have some 400 across the country.

Derbyshire LEA

Natascha Engel: What assessment he has made of the effect of the new rules for competitive tendering for new schools on the incentive for the local education authority in Derbyshire to consider merging existing schools.

Jim Knight: School place planning is the statutory responsibility of the local authority. Competitions will normally be held whenever proposals are required for a new or replacement school. School amalgamations can be effected in different ways and it is up to the local authority to act in accordance with local circumstances.

Natascha Engel: Derbyshire county council, which was recently audited as excellent again, has held an extensive consultation with the community of Clay Cross, where three schools are to be replaced by one brand new, state of the art primary school. From the consultation it was clear that Clay Cross mums and dads want the new school to be run by Derbyshire county council, but that that decision will now be taken by the schools adjudicator. Can my hon. Friend explain what account is taken of the wishes of the community when the adjudicator makes his or her decision on who is to run the new school?

Jim Knight: As ever, my hon. Friend is an excellent advocate for the mums and dads of Clay Cross. She is right to say that Labour Derbyshire is an excellent local authority. It is fulfilling its statutory duty to carry out an extensive public consultation on the proposals for new schools. The decision-maker's guidance from the Secretary of State, which informs the work of the adjudicator, requires him to take account of the views expressed in the consultation by parents and the local community.

A-levels

Richard Benyon: What plans he has to encourage more pupils to take A-levels.

Alan Johnson: The number of students taking A-levels is not a cause for concern. However, in order to make them even more attractive, we have announced proposals to revise A-levels. However, if we are to increase post-16 participation among young people, it is important that they have a range of qualifications from which they can choose. Therefore, in addition to our proposals to improve A-levels, we are introducing the new 14-19 diplomas and expanding the availability of the international baccalaureate.

Richard Benyon: A recent reply from the Minister for Higher Education and Lifelong Learning about Kennet school in Thatcham in my constituency missed the point about the tortuous process of Learning and Skills Council funding, which means that schools such as Kennet are penalised for growing their sixth forms and the numbers of pupils that stay on beyond the age of 16. Complaints to the LSC bring the response that the Department and Ministers are being inflexible in the funding rules that they set. Will the Secretary of State look into the matter, so that schools that do the Government's bidding and grow their sixth forms are not penalised?

Alan Johnson: I will look into that. I cannot think that the Department would ever be inflexible, under any circumstances, so I reject that remark entirely. However, there does seem to a problem in the hon. Gentleman's constituency and we will be happy to try and solve it.

Kelvin Hopkins: My right hon. Friend will be aware of Luton sixth form college's stunning success with A-level results, but it also offers the international baccalaureate. That is a better course for many students, and it is possible that in future it will be regarded as a better course for all students in that age group. What success has he had so far in persuading other authorities to offer the IB?

Alan Johnson: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the opportunity to repeat the announcement made by my Department last September. We believe that the IB should be much more widely available, and the gateway to the diploma that we are setting up will extend by about 100 the number of local authorities where state school pupils can access it—a very important step forward. I agree that the diversity that the IB represents means that it should be widely available to state pupils across the country.

Peter Bottomley: Will the Secretary of State say when he expects a significant rise in the number of grade A A-levels in maths and physics, or their IB equivalents?

Alan Johnson: An awful lot of work is going on, not least under the 10-year science and innovation plan, to get the right teachers in place and to establish science learning centres around the country that will ensure that stem subjects receive the attention that they deserve. More students are taking maths and physics, and more teachers are being recruited, but the plan is set to last 10 years precisely because we need a long-term vision. The same problems associated with encouraging youngsters to take those subjects are encountered in practically every developed country around the world. As the report from Adrian Smith a couple of years ago pointed out, mathematicians trained in universities are more likely to go to work in the City and other similar locations. It would be an enormous step forward if we could attract them into teaching, and that is increasingly what we are doing.

Fiona Mactaggart: Will my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State look at funding arrangements for post-16 pupils? We need to ensure that all of them have access to choice and quality, but the new diplomas mean that money will follow the pupil. Schools that want to hang on to those resources will be less inclined to encourage pupils to do vocational courses that might be available at colleges. Will he look at funding routes to ensure that schools and colleges that provide choice and quality are rewarded, and that they are not obliged merely to hang on to students?

Alan Johnson: My hon. Friend is right to raise this matter. Part of the Further Education and Training Bill currently before the other place deals with the funding issue that she mentions. The diplomas resemble IBs, in that students have to undertake an extended project, but no institution on its own can deliver them. The fact that schools, sixth form colleges and FE colleges must collaborate in that provision has implications for the different levels funding that, for various reasons, have been inherited. We are trying to tackle the important point that my hon. Friend raises. When the FE Bill comes to this end of the House, she will see that an important part of the debate will be about funding.

Nick Gibb: The Secretary of State will be aware that the numbers of maths and physics A-level students have fallen by about 2,000 since 1997. Does he share the concern of the advisory committee on mathematics education, as we do, that students studying A-level maths will need to have passed both parts of the new, double-subject GCSE maths exam that the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority is piloting, rather than just the new basic GCSE in maths? Will he ensure that the option of studying both maths GCSEs is made an entitlement, so that we do not end up with hundreds of secondary schools in a few years' time not offering the higher-level maths GCSE?

Alan Johnson: Again, this problem was highlighted in the Adrian Smith report and we are seeking to tackle it. The hon. Gentleman is right about the drop since 1997, but we are now seeing that situation turn around. I am willing to look at all the deliberations of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, providing that we do not sacrifice quality. That must be the central feature. There is a strand of argument that if we follow this route, it could affect quality, which is why we must be careful in taking this forward.

Extended School Activities

Helen Goodman: What progress has been made in ensuring that schools are offering extended activities.

Paddy Tipping: What progress has been made on ensuring that all schools are offering extended activities.

Beverley Hughes: Over 3,800 schools are providing access to the full core offer of extended services in England and 11,500 are working with their local authorities to develop extended services. This is encouraging progress towards our 2008 target of half of all primary and a third of all secondary schools providing access to extended services.

Helen Goodman: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that reply. Clearly, extended schools are an opportunity for a significant improvement in the quality of life of many children. I know that the Minister is committed to play being a central part of the time that children spend in extended schools, but that is not happening across the board. Could she consider including children's play in the prospectus for the core offer?

Beverley Hughes: I am grateful for the great interest that my hon. Friend takes in this subject. I assure her that, certainly for younger children, we expect elements of the core offer of extended services to include play, both in the child care element, wrapped around the start and end of the school day, and in the variety of activities that children do. Having been to many extended schools, I know that for very young children it is sometimes hard to see how a child will distinguish between play and learning, and we have to hold on to that. Certainly I agree that for young children in particular, as well as enriching activities for older children, play is an important part of their development.

Paddy Tipping: Of course play and learning are clearly linked. The Minister will know that there are examples of good practice in extended schools where, through play, imaginative and exciting activities are promoted. Does she agree that we should not just extend classroom activities, but also give children other opportunities?

Beverley Hughes: I agree with my hon. Friend. We all know that better off parents and the best public schools have always provided extensive programmes of extracurricular activities. They understand that those activities help children to develop a range of attributes that are important for their enjoyment, learning and development as rounded people. That is why we have given schools £840 million plus £1.3 billion for personalised learning, so that they can give every child the extended opportunities that will help them develop educationally and in terms of the other skills that, increasingly, employers tell us they need.

Sarah Teather: Does the Minister stand by her statement last summer that parents will not mind paying £80 a week to send their children to after-school clubs? If not, what does she believe to be a reasonable amount for them to pay?

Beverley Hughes: I did not make that statement, although it appeared in the press. For many parents, charging is an acceptable part of what they are willing to do for additional activities in school. Certainly for low income families, extended services—many activities of the child care element and the enrichment activities—will be covered by the tax credit system that many parents are receiving. As I go round schools I see that they are considering this issue sensitively. We want to make sure that children from disadvantaged families are not excluded from these important activities because of charging. Local authorities are working with us to see if we can make sure of that. It is important that every child has these opportunities.

Nursery Services

Andrew MacKay: What recent representations he received on the provision of nursery services free at the point of delivery.

Parmjit Dhanda: Ministerial colleagues and I hold regular meetings with stakeholders to discuss early years issues and we receive a range of correspondence. Both provide an opportunity to celebrate the progress that we are making towards delivering our 10-year child care strategy and to make it clear that the free early education entitlement should continue to be just that—free at the point of delivery.

Andrew MacKay: Is the Minister aware that in certain parts of the country there is a gap between the money that nurseries receive from the Government and the actual cost of nursery provision, which means that a modest top-up fee is absolutely essential? Owing to the new statutory guidelines published by the Secretary of State last year, excellent nurseries such as Flying Start at Pinewood in my constituency, which are very popular, will not be able to continue, as they will no longer be eligible for Government money because they have to charge top-up fees. That is causing great distress to local parents whose children will have nowhere else to go. What does the Minister intend to do about it?

Parmjit Dhanda: Our view is that free means free. We do not believe in a two-tier system. I would be interested to hear the view of Opposition Front-Bench Members. Do they support the £3 billion a year that we are putting into nursery care? We are proud of the offer of 12 and a half hours' free provision for all three and four-year-olds for 38 weeks, and we are working with local authorities to make that happen. We believe that the £3 billion a year we are giving local authorities is sufficient to provide that care for free; hence we do not believe in a two-tier system.

Barbara Keeley: Child care provided by child minders is an important service for many working families in my constituency and the Sure Start centres in Little Hulton and Tyldesley have child minder networks that support 163 child minders caring for 568 children. Does my hon. Friend agree about the importance of that branch of child care, and can he tell me what commitment there is to the further development of child minder support?

Parmjit Dhanda: My hon. Friend makes a good point. We are doing everything we can to support child minders in local networks. As she is aware, since 1997 we have doubled the number of child care places and there are now about 1.3 million up and down the land, but it is important that we work with children's centres, too, to enhance that work locally. My hon. Friend will also be aware that we shall be creating 3,500 children's centres between now and 2010.

Anne McIntosh: Does not the Minister accept that the nursery sector is approaching crisis and will he join me in paying tribute to its excellent work in the provision of nursery care? However, given the question put by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Mr. Mackay), does not the Minister appreciate that in reality nursery care is not free at the point of delivery, because nurseries have to charge fees that are higher than the rate allowed under free provision? He should not allow his party's ideology to stand in the way of free provision, so will he tell the House that the £7.5 million for parents that the Minister for Children and Families will announce later today will actually be used for nursery provision?

Parmjit Dhanda: I think the hon. Lady has just made it clear to the House that Opposition Front Benchers believe in a two-tier system. There is a real difference, because for us, free means free and I shall highlight what we expect to be delivered for free. The foundation stage curriculum provides communication, language, literacy, numeracy, an understanding of the world, physical, social and emotional development and creativity. That can be delivered from a budget of £3 billion a year, working through local authorities. We are investing a further £3 billion a year in children's centres and the like, as well as £2 million a day through child tax credit. Perhaps the hon. Lady is saying that the Conservatives would invest more. Is she nodding? Would they invest more? She is not making that clear—

Mr. Speaker: Order.

SOLICITOR-GENERAL

The Solicitor-General was asked—

Rape Cases

Kali Mountford: What steps he plans to take to implement the recommendations of the recent inspectorate's report on rape cases.

Mike O'Brien: All the recommendations set out in the report have been accepted. In addition, the Government will extend the number of sexual assault referral centres from 15 to 30 by the end of 2008. We are also funding a pilot of independent sexual violence advisers to help victims through the trial process, with the aim of securing justice for victims.

Kali Mountford: I thank my hon. and learned Friend for that reply. My reading of the report tells me that it builds well on the lessons learned from the domestic violence courts. Does he see, as I do, the importance of the valuable lessons that we have learned in that context from looking at how specialists can help both witnesses and victims to feel supported and confident when they are giving their evidence, to make sure that we can get real convictions and success through the courts?

Mike O'Brien: My hon. Friend is entirely right. In the pilots in the domestic violence courts the assistance of advisers to the victims produced substantial increases in convictions, because the victims were reassured about the process and helped through something that can, in many ways, be very difficult. We can probably transfer those lessons into the area of dealing with victims of rape. I hope that the creation of 38 independent sexual violence advisers will help victims of rape by enabling them to access support services, and by providing them with people who can explain how the courts operate and perhaps take them on a visit, give them some emotional support and act as a contact point in the lead-up to a trial. I hope that that will result in more victims being able to come to court and more convictions being secured.

Peter Bone: What is the Government's view in regard to women who are trafficked into this country to become sex slaves and prostitutes? Should the men who use those prostitutes be charged with rape?

Mike O'Brien: Rape requires an absence of consent, which depends on the particular circumstances in individual cases. If a man rapes a woman knowing that she is being forced to have sex with him, he may well be at risk of being charged with rape. However, if he is unaware that she is being forced or if he believes that there is genuine consent, the circumstances may be different. The use of trafficked women in this way is reprehensible and may well amount to other offences, but whether it is always rape is a much more difficult subject.

Ann Cryer: I appreciate my hon. and learned Friend's reply about women who have been raped. Does he agree that there are far too many allegations of rape that never get to the courtroom door? I know what he is saying—the measures will be helpful. But more help might be needed for women to prepare their cases and to prepare them for the trauma of a trial.

Mike O'Brien: My hon. Friend is quite right: we need to do much more to help victims. The Government have provided £7 million towards improving services for the victims of sexual violence, especially by extending the network of sexual assault referral centres, supporting the advisers that I have already mentioned, and funding independent sexual violence voluntary sector assistance and counselling for victims. We have also introduced 65 witness care units so that we can provide help with transport and child care to witnesses. There are now 520 rape specialist prosecutors to ensure that the right charges are brought. We need to ensure that we provide that extra help to victims.

Law Officers' Advice

Andrew Robathan: What assessment he has made of the merits of the legal advice of the Attorney-General to the Cabinet being made public.

Tony Baldry: On what grounds Law Officers' advice to Ministers is confidential.

Mike O'Brien: Robust advice from a lawyer to a client has to be based on relationship of trust and candour, and therefore advice is normally confidential. Law Officers' advice to Ministers has similar legal privilege. That is reflected in the ministerial code. In certain cases, it is, however, right for Parliament and the public to be given an explanation of the legal basis for certain decisions that have been reached. Yesterday afternoon, we discussed some of the basis for some decisions in relation to the BAE case and the al-Yamamah contract.

Andrew Robathan: This is very different from the relationship between a private client and his solicitor. Has the Solicitor-General managed to take the time to discuss the matter with his predecessor, the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), whose thinking is exactly the opposite of his? In the current climate, is it not vital that the Government be open about what has been said and about the legal advice that has been given on various issues, not least the war in Iraq?

Mike O'Brien: There are various views about this. The Minister of State, Department for Constitutional Affairs, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), is entitled to her view, I am entitled to mine, and the Attorney-General has expressed his. If advice were open, everyone would know it, but it would be subject to constant criticism by every lawyer with a different opinion. Such a situation could lead Ministers to be less open with Law Officers, and Law Officers might be more circumspect about their advice if they knew that it was going to be made public. The Government need robust advice, not anodyne circumspection. If Ministers and Law Officers knew that advice was going to be made public, they could take that fact into account. However, we would not want a situation in which Ministers who needed good legal advice did not come and get it.

Tony Baldry: The Minister of State, Department for Constitutional Affairs, the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), said:
	"It is a contradiction in terms to have an accountable office-holder who is not able to publish to those whom he is accountable the advice he has given. It is not enough for government ministers to say we are advised that it is lawful. Backbenchers, let alone the wider public, want to see for themselves what the arguments are."
	Presumably the Minister of State and the Solicitor-General are both bound by the doctrine of collective responsibility. Which one of them speaks for the Government?

Mike O'Brien: The Government's view is quite clear. It is set out in the ministerial code, which sets out the position of Ministers. As I have said —[ Interruption. ]

Mr. Speaker: Order. Let the Solicitor-General speak.

Mike O'Brien: My right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State has expressed her view. She is entitled to have a view, but the view of the Government is that set out in the ministerial code. The view is clear and one that the Information Commissioner recently set out in an opinion. Let me quote what he said, because it is useful:
	"The wider principle that legal advice should attract legal professional privilege is supported by very strong public interest arguments. The principle promotes the administration of justice and the ability of an individual to confide in his legal adviser, receive advice, and take appropriate action to abide by the law. The arguments for maintaining legal professional privilege are strong and therefore the circumstances in which the public interest will favour disclosure of information that is legally privileged are likely to be highly exceptional."

Keith Vaz: Let me help my hon. and learned Friend. It is a settled precedent that the advice of the Attorney-General should be confidential. The Minister of State, Department for Constitutional Affairs, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), who is a former deputy to the Attorney-General, has said completely the opposite. Is she not bound by collective responsibility on the matter? Bearing in mind that it is Valentine's day next week, on 14 February, will the Solicitor-General act as Cupid and patch up this problem between the Attorney-General and his former deputy?

Mike O'Brien: I am grateful for my right hon. Friend's assistance. He showed yesterday that he was able to assist Bollywood stars—he did a high-profile job in doing so. I am not quite sure that we need such publicity for this matter, although he will no doubt ensure that we get a little bit more.
	It is the Government's view that disclosing all the detailed legal advice that Ministers sometimes request from Law Officers might involve the disclosure of arguments. The Government would then have to set out those arguments, after which they would just be challenged in the courts. Such a situation might well create uncertainty about sound legal advice because both sides of an argument could often be referred to. The advice thus might well highlight Government vulnerability. I take a different view from my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State, and I must say that the Government do, too.

Simon Hughes: Everyone understands that there is a tradition of privilege regarding advice given to a client. However, will the Solicitor-General talk to the Attorney-General—the evidence that the Attorney-General gave yesterday showed that he was clearly willing to think about developing the role of Law Officers—and suggest that there is a clear distinction between the advice that the Government are given when they are working out their view, which is perfectly properly confidential, and advice that gives the Government a justification for coming to Parliament to argue a case on the basis of that advice, as was the case when the decision was taken on war in Iraq? There must an argument for knowing the advice if the Government come to Parliament and say that they have been given advice that justifies what they are trying to persuade Parliament to do.

Mike O'Brien: I am with the hon. Gentleman part of the way. There is an argument for setting out the legal basis on which advice has been reached. Arguably, that was done to some extent in relation to the Iraq war, but also on a range of other issues where difficult decisions, such as in the BAE example, were involved. As Law Officers, we have to come before the House to answer questions, set out the arguments and participate in a substantial debate over such decisions, so it is not the case that we are saying nothing should be discussed. What we are saying is that, if it is suggested that all sorts of legal advice on a whole range of issues should be made freely available, I would have to disagree, because it would undermine the basis of trust between Ministers and the Law Officers. There are certain circumstances in which it is appropriate to bring before the House the advice that has been given and to explain at least the basis of it.

Dominic Grieve: One feels rather sorry for the Solicitor-General. If the Minister of State, Department for Constitutional Affairs, represents the normal category of client within the Government with whom the Solicitor-General has to deal, he clearly has a rather harder time that I would normally have expected. Can he make one point clear? If there were to be any change, would it not have to be directed by the Prime Minister, thus making it something over which the Law Officers have no control at all? Legal professional privilege attaches not for any advantage to the Law Officers, but to those who receive the advice. Therefore the Minister of State's comments cannot be aimed at the Law Officers; presumably, they are aimed at the Prime Minister.

Mike O'Brien: It is certainly the case that legal privilege attaches to the client rather than the lawyer. That is the case across the board. It is therefore the case that it must be a decision for the client—whether it be a Minister or the Prime Minister—to take a view as to whether the advice should be published or not. It is a matter for the lawyer to give the advice in a robust and straightforward way, which is what we as Law Officers seek to do. It is a matter for the Minister to decide whether it is disclosed, but the ministerial guidance requires that the consent of the Law Officers be obtained before that is done. A better approach is for Ministers to indicate that they are seeking advice and that they are seeking for it to be made public; in those circumstances, the Law Officers would be able to take a view as to how best to put that advice.

Business of the House

Theresa May: Will the Leader of the House give us the business for the coming weeks?

Jack Straw: The business for next week will be as follows:
	Monday 19 February—Motions relating to benefits up-rating, followed by a debate on human rights "Values, rights and responsibilities" on a motion for the Adjournment of the House.
	Tuesday 20 February—Remaining stages of the Planning Gain Supplement (Preparations) Bill, followed by remaining stages of the Income Tax Bill.
	Wednesday 21 February—Opposition Day [6th Allotted Day], there will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.
	Thursday 22 February—Motion to approve the Draft Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 (Continuance in Force of Section 1 to 9) Order 2007 followed by, a debate entitled "Health Challenge England: New Directions for Public Health" on a motion for the Adjournment of the House.
	Friday 23 February—Private Members' Bills.
	The provisional business for the week commencing 26 February will include:
	Monday 26 February—Opposition Day [7th Allotted Day]. There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.

Theresa May: Given the interchange that we just heard in questions to the Solicitor-General, may I help the Leader of the House by suggesting that he arrange a debate on collective responsibility, in which Ministers could learn to understand what being part of the same team is supposed to mean?
	I note that the Leader of the House has not given us a full two weeks' business. He will have noticed that there is considerable interest in the debate on the unprecedented preferential voting system that he is introducing on House of Lords reform. The press report that the debate might be held on 27 February. Will the Leader of the House confirm the date of that debate?
	Before Christmas, the Leader of the House recognised the strength of feeling in the calls for a debate on Iraq. There is similar feeling for a debate on Afghanistan, particularly given the issues of troop deployment and resources and the Taliban threats reported today. May we therefore have a debate in Government time on Afghanistan?
	Following the announcement by the hon. Member for Morley and Rothwell (Colin Challen) that he would not contest the next general election, despite earlier assurances to the contrary, we learned this week from the Chancellor's climate change adviser, Sir Nicholas Stern, that the Chancellor had appointed the hon. Gentleman to work with Sir Nicholas. Will the Leader of the House clarify the terms on which the hon. Gentleman was appointed by the Chancellor and what he will do in his new role and assure us that no other promise has been made of which the House, or perhaps another place, should be aware?
	The Select Committee on the Treasury recommended that the date of the Budget be given two months in advance. We are now less than two months from the Easter recess: why the delay, and when will we be given the date?
	My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) has previously raised the question of the new arrangements for passports, under which people renewing their passports will have to be interviewed—up to 6 million interviews a year managed by the Home Office. We now know that the new e-passports might have to be reissued every two years, which would lead to a massive increase in the number of interviews required. May we have a statement from the Home Secretary on how the Home Office, which is not fit for purpose, will cope?
	Finally, may we have a statement from the Secretary of State for Health? The Government have dropped a pledge to build or refurbish 50 community hospitals. The Department of Health has given the go-ahead for the refurbishment of only one community hospital and three health centres, while five community hospitals have been closed in the past year. At the same time, maternity units are closing, with even the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Bury, South (Mr. Lewis) campaigning against closure of the maternity unit in his constituency.
	The Secretary of State for Health seems to live in a parallel world. She has denied the impact of cuts and deficits and on health care. Last year, she even said that it was the best year ever for the NHS. Today, she has told the  Daily Mirror that
	"Closing NHS beds is a sign of success".
	There have been 9,000 bed closures in the past 21 months —some success rate. That paper is not known for its opposition to Labour, but it asks:
	"Is this the most extraordinary statement ever made by a Labour Health Secretary?"
	We need a statement from the Health Secretary, so that she can explain why she measures success in bed closures, so that she can apologise to the patients who are suffering as a result of her policies and so that Members on both sides of the House can tell her exactly what they and the public think of the Government's cuts in the NHS.

Jack Straw: I always listen carefully to the House—I am listening at the moment—but it is for the usual channels to decide the timing of a debate on Lords reform. When a recess is coming up, it is quite usual not to announce the full business for the week after the week when we come back.
	The right hon. Lady asks for a debate on Afghanistan. We have just had a debate on defence in the world, which included a great deal of discussion of Afghanistan. Of course I understand the concern that she articulates on behalf of the House, but I cannot promise a debate very shortly, given that we have already had one debate, which I delivered in response to requests from the House, and a second debate in normal time in respect of wider defence issues.
	The right hon. Lady asks me about my hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Rothwell (Colin Challen).

Shailesh Vara: The right hon. Gentleman is smiling.

Jack Straw: Is it an offence to smile? There is not much to smile about in the right hon. Lady's questions, but I think I am entitled to smile. She asks me about my hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Rothwell.

Shailesh Vara: Is there are secret?

Jack Straw: If there is a secret, I do not know it. I am responsible for a great deal, but not for my right hon. Friend the Chancellor's appointments, any more than he is responsible for mine, so I suggest that she table questions to him.  [Interruption.] To each of us.
	On the date of the Budget, it is often the case—it was under the previous Administration, or certainly during the 18 years of it that I witnessed—that the date is not announced anything like two months in advance. Of course, it is for everybody's convenience that it should be announced as far in advance as possible, and we will make an announcement about it as quickly as we can.
	I am glad that the right hon. Lady asked about e-passports, because it enables me to bring to a wider audience an unusual statement from the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh), who said, in respect of a report on e-passports, that
	"It makes a pleasant change to be able to welcome a project from the Home Office which has been delivered on time and budget, as is the case with ePassports."

Theresa May: indicated dissent.

Jack Straw: The right hon. Lady shakes her head; I know that the hon. Member for Gainsborough is almost in a different party from her, and he recently said in  The Daily Telegraph that the Conservative party, under the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron), was going
	"in the wrong direction."
	The right hon. Lady needs to talk to her researchers—those famed researchers, whose knowledge of parliamentary procedure and pop songs is often so defective—before she comes back to the subject of e-passports.
	On the health service, which we are always pleased to debate, there is a serious point to be made about bed closures. Beds in some hospital wards have closed. Why? Because—

Philip Davies: It is a shambles.

Jack Straw: No, because patients are spending much less time in hospital, thanks to huge improvements in treatment, and thanks to the fact that many people who, even five years ago, had to receive treatment as in-patients now receive treatment as day patients. Conservatives may mock that, but it happens to be to true, and if they are serious about producing a health service when and if they form an Administration, I do not believe for a second that they would go into an election with a health policy that committed them to not closing a single hospital bed. I hope that they will go in to the election saying that they will increase spending on the health service, instead of cutting taxation. We know that they voted against every single spending plan, although those plans produced 85,000 more nurses and 32,000 more doctors, and meant that 157 new hospitals have either been built or are on the way.

Lyn Brown: Will my right hon. Friend find time for a debate on police manpower statistics? Since the introduction of police community support officers and safer neighbourhoods teams, police visibility in my constituency has improved significantly, as has the ability to respond to community concerns. Given the success of those innovations in West Ham, can we not find time to discuss funding for neighbourhood policing, to ensure that policing levels are maintained, if not increased?

Jack Straw: I shall certainly consider that, and, as my hon. Friend knows, the total number of police officers is now at a record high, having increased by more than 14,000 in the past 10 years. Alongside that, there are almost 7,000 police community support officers.

David Heath: The reason the House is so keen to hold debates on the health service is that that is the only level of democratic accountability for the decisions that are taken. We share the concerns about community hospital closures and maternity units. I note that Dr. Sheila Shribman, the author of a report issued last week, said:
	"If you have to travel to get the best care then families are more than willing to do that."
	That shows a fine disregard for the fact that some families cannot do that, particularly in rural areas, where proximity is a key part of health care.
	I add to those concerns the issue of dentists. We learned today that the number of calls to NHS Direct from people desperate to find an NHS dentist rose to well over 200,000 in the past six months. Some 2,000 dentists left the NHS last year, and a further 860 are in dispute. These are serious matters for our constituents and we ought to have the opportunity to debate them.
	May we have a statement from the Chancellor of the Exchequer—incidentally, can Government statements, which are pre-arranged, be arranged for days other than Opposition Supply days, which seems to have become a habit recently?—on the report from the National Audit Office, which reveals that of the £13.3 billion of savings trumpeted for the Gershon review, £10 billion are dubious or fictitious? This is a matter of some concern for the planning of Government finances.
	May we have a statement on the outcome of the judicial review of the Government's refusal to accept the ombudsman's report on pension compensation? The Government have chosen to ignore the ombudsman, the European Court of Justice and the Public Administration Committee of the House. They surely cannot ignore a judicial review. In the interests of pension justice, we should have a statement.
	The Leader of the House hinted a couple of weeks ago in response to a question of mine that we would have a debate on Scotland and the Act of Union. That seems to have gone by the bye. I anticipate that we will have a debate on St. David's day, 1 March, on Wales. May I ask for a debate on whales spelled with an h? Whaling is an important environmental matter, and one on which the Government have an extremely good record. In the past few days the Government produced a document that bears further scrutiny, which argues that the nations around the world that are engaged in the Whaling Commission should resist attempts by whaling nations to re-open commercial whaling. We should give the Government every support on that, because many people support the conservation of these special mammals.

Jack Straw: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's endorsement on whales. I shall think about his request.
	He asked for a debate on the national health service. The Liberal Democrats had two debates yesterday and they wasted both opportunities. They were shredded by my hon. Friend the Minister for the Middle East and by the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Mr. Coaker). For someone who is occasionally friendly with the Liberal Democrats, it was embarrassing to read  Hansard, and still more to have been in the House. The hon. Gentleman missed an opportunity, and there are plenty of other opportunities to debate the NHS.
	The hon. Gentleman complains about the absence of community hospitals. I think he is the Member for Frome.

David Heath: We have one.

Jack Straw: Exactly. Under our spending plans—not the Liberal Democrats' or the Conservatives' plans—a large amount has been spent building a new community hospital for Frome to replace the existing hospital, which is over 100 years old. The Liberal Democrats believe in magic wands and fairies. They want new community hospitals everywhere all at once. We are providing them as we can, but with a much higher level of resource than ever they or the Conservatives could.
	The Gershon targets are targets, and the time span for the implementation of Gershon has not yet been fulfilled. On pensions, a judicial review is under way and I shall not anticipate the outcome. If the hon. Gentleman consults the record in respect of a possible debate on Scotland, he will find that I said that I would think about it, and I am still doing so.

David Winnick: Although I recognise that there remains an acute terrorist threat in our country, Britain can hardly be a police state if those who believe that can broadcast their views. Nevertheless, will my right hon. Friend find out how the lurid details of last week's detentions came to be leaked? If there are such allegations, they should arise in court when charges are made, and the charges should be made by the prosecution. There are some lessons from recent detentions that unfortunately have not been learned.

Jack Straw: My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary takes very seriously any unattributed briefing about such matters, as have all Home Secretaries. I make two further points to my hon. Friend. One is that it is a simple fact of life and inevitable in any fair criminal justice system that some of those in respect of whom there is a reasonable suspicion sufficient to merit arrest are subsequently released without charge. That has to be the case, but it also happens, as figures from my right hon. Friend the Attorney-General have made clear, that the ratio of arrest to charge not just under the Terrorism Act 2000, but under other, more substantial offences, is higher than in respect of many categories of offence. The final point that I make to my hon. Friend is that we should give no excuse or quarter to those who claim that this country is a police state. That is utter nonsense. We live in a democracy and, sadly, we are engaged in fighting people who seek to destroy the very basis of our democracy. That includes, as part of our democracy, all of my constituents, 30 per cent. of whom are Muslim.

Roger Gale: At Prime Minister's questions before Christmas, I asked the Prime Minister if he would make available resources to the families bereaved as a result of the Iraq war to be represented at coroners inquests. The Prime Minister responded that the families would get all the assistance that was necessary. Following that statement, I wrote to the Lord Chancellor and asked him to give substance to that undertaking. I received a reply from the Under-Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, the hon. and learned Member for Redcar (Vera Baird) referring to various matters concerning legal aid, which did not help at all, so I wrote back to the Lord Chancellor and asked if he would give substance to the Prime Minister's undertaking. To date, that undertaking has not been honoured. Will the Leader of the House arrange for a debate so that we can discuss the resources given to the state to represent the armed forces through the Ministry of Defence at inquests, and the resources that are not given to the families who require representation?

Jack Straw: I take very seriously what the hon. Gentleman says. I personally will look into the matter and write to him. On the subject of a debate, we had a wide debate on defence just last week, and he is fully aware that there are other opportunities to raise the matter on the Adjournment.

George Howarth: Through our many years of friendship, my right hon. Friend and I have rarely, if ever, disagreed on anything before. I welcome the fact that, as he said in reply to the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May), he is still listening to views on the system of voting that we will employ on House of Lords reform. Is he aware that many of us want not only the opportunity to vote for what we want to happen, but the opportunity to vote against what we do not want to happen?

Jack Straw: I am glad to hear that from my close right hon. Friend. As I said, I have always sought to listen to the House and I continue to do so. My one aim is to enable the House to come to a conclusion, which it was, sadly, unable to do last time.

Paul Goodman: Following the line of thought opened up by the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick), there are few general opportunities in the House to debate the current state of relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in Britain. Is it possible to have a debate in Government time on integration and cohesion, which would provide the opportunity for a broader debate but would include the opportunity to consider that matter?

Jack Straw: I cannot make a promise about that. The hon. Gentleman is aware of the pressures on time, but that is an idea that we should actively consider.

Mark Tami: Prior to veterans day on 27 June this year, may we have a debate on support for veterans in Britain—people who have served our nation so well?

Jack Straw: I will look into that. My hon. Friend knows that there are many opportunities in Westminster Hall and on the Adjournment to debate the matter. I think he is aware of all the efforts that our Government have made over the past 10 years to improve services to veterans, including the appointment of a Minister for Veterans.

Pete Wishart: This week the Prime Minister got his usual easy ride at the hands of the Liaison Committee, where we find that there is still no representation of the minority parties. The Leader of the House referred yesterday to something called cross-party consensus and consultation on his House of Lords reform. Again, we find that only the three main parties are involved in that. Will this Leader of the House dare to be inclusive and to ensure that all parties and constituencies are represented in all the institutions of the House?

Jack Straw: The cross-party talks were not part of the House's operations but a Government initiative in which the other two parties willingly joined. I will consider the hon. Gentleman's suggestion, but if we are going to enter into cross-party talks we need to know where he is coming from. As far as I can tell, he wants to be on a completely different planet from the rest of us. If he is telling me that he has repented and now recognises the value of the United Kingdom Parliament, we can start on some business.

Barry Sheerman: Given the possibility of a takeover of Sainsbury's, one of our major supermarkets, by a private equity conglomerate, could we have a debate in the House about the role of private equity organisations? They are mysterious and unaccountable organisations that employ nearly 3 million people in this country, and the House should know more about their workings.

Jack Straw: I will pass on my hon. Friend's views to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. There are many opportunities for the issue to be raised on the Floor of the House and through investigation by the Select Committee on Trade and Industry.

Philip Hollobone: The  Northampton Herald and Post is looking to start a campaign to highlight the difficulties of cancer patients who can access life-saving treatments only in the private sector, not through the NHS. Can we have a debate in Government time on how we can address that very serious problem?

Jack Straw: Of course one understands the distress caused by particular cases in the hon. Gentleman's constituency, as in mine or anybody else's. However, he must appreciate that there has been a phenomenal increase in the amount of money invested in the health service in the past 10 years—money that his party not only would not have provided but voted against. The result has been a huge improvement in mortality and morbidity rates; in other words, people are living longer and more healthily. We sought to establish fair assistance, through National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence evaluations and other systems, whereby resources—which at any level will be limited, although they are much more than they were or would have been—can be fairly allocated.

David Clelland: May we have an early debate on the appropriate use of referendums? Given that both major Opposition parties said in their last manifestos that they would introduce a directly elected element into the House of Lords, and lost, while the Labour party did not mention direct elections, and won, surely we cannot take the kind of radical action that my right hon. Friend proposes without a referendum of the people. Let the question be: "Do you want another 270 elected politicians—yes or no?"

Jack Straw: We said in our manifesto that we wanted a reformed House of Lords that was more representative. It is arguable, to say the least, whether it can be more representative without there being a democratic elected element. We did not promise a referendum, and there is no suggestion that we should do so. When we have a Bill, my hon. Friend will no doubt wish to table an amendment, and then we shall see.

Jo Swinson: The Leader of the House mentioned the response that he gave two weeks ago to the request by my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) for a debate on the Act of Union. He told us just now that he would think about it, but what he said then was:
	"That is a good idea. I shall consult my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland and I hope to make an announcement in due course."—[ Official Report, 25 January 2007; Vol. 455, c. 1558.]
	Does what he said just now mean that he consulted his right hon. Friend, who thought that it was a bad idea to have a debate on this important issue, or can we expect such a debate in the near future?

Jack Straw: I do not think that there is much difference between what I said previously and what I said just now. I am thinking about it.

Denis MacShane: May we have a debate on the Electoral Commission? That body got £26 million last year, yet, having asked a large number of colleagues from all parties what it actually does, I cannot find an answer. I do not want to abolish anything, but £26 million is an awful lot of money, and if some of it was given for political purposes to democratic parties, that might obviate the need for the loans, offshore transactions and so forth which have caused a little difficulty for all of us in the past few months.

Jack Straw: My right hon. Friend raises a very serious point. He will be aware that the Committee on Standards in Public Life has recommended significant changes in relation to the Electoral Commission, including a reduction in its scope and budget. It is also a subject of consideration by Sir Hayden Phillips. The Select Committee on Constitutional Affairs made a recommendation, but I told its Chairman that we will delay our response until we have received Sir Hayden Phillips' report. I am considering whether to make an oral statement on his report.

Michael Penning: May we have a debate in Government time, as soon as possible, on the nasty and abhorrent inheritance tax? This week, I was visited by a constituent who bought his council house under the right to buy but, sadly, worries that current property prices mean that when he dies he will not be able to hand it over to his loved ones because inheritance tax thresholds have not risen with inflation.

Jack Straw: There will be an opportunity to debate that when we come to the four-day Budget debate that is due before Easter. I do not know who the hon. Gentleman includes within the category of loved ones, but transfers between spouses on death are subject to special exemptions from inheritance tax.

Mary Creagh: May we have a debate on the weather? My right hon. Friend will be aware that throughout the country today—although not in Yorkshire, where we are tough—schools have been closed or are closing early. While that offers children welcome opportunities to practise their sledging, snowman-building and snow angel-making skills, there is an economic impact on businesses and public services—and indeed on this place, as earlier in the Committee Corridor I saw a child accompanying her father in her Wellington boots. We need to discuss what is the appropriate local, regional and national response at times when we have extremes of temperature, whether snow or excessive heat, to guarantee public services and people's health and safety.

Jack Straw: Predicting a debate on the weather would be as difficult as predicting the weather itself. My hon. Friend makes a serious and important point. The judgment about whether to close schools is a matter for the local authorities concerned, and I will not second-guess them. However, it is extremely important that we constantly upgrade our efforts to defy the weather, which after all, notwithstanding a day's snow, is much more moderate in this country than in many other countries that are able to cope with it a bit better.

Andrew MacKay: Returning to the thorny issue of preferential voting on Lords reform, as the Leader of the House has admitted that he is in listening mode, I put it to him that many of us will be signing the early-day motion tabled yesterday by the right hon. Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth). Will he guarantee that before this radical idea is implemented it goes before the Procedure Committee; and can he assure the House that Government Back Benchers will not be put under a three-line Whip and there will be a free vote on this issue, which should be a House of Commons issue?

Jack Straw: I cannot do the latter, but as well as listening carefully I am reading carefully.

James McGovern: I am concerned about how we can regulate profit-driven organisations that seek to portray themselves as charities. Last week, I was contacted by a constituent who had received through his door a flyer from an organisation known as Helpmates Ltd asking for donations of clothes which it said that it would forward to third world countries. What it did not say was that it would sell the clothes before they reached those countries. May we have a debate about how we can prevent that disreputable practice and protect our constituents from these fraudsters?

Jack Straw: My hon. Friend raises an important point. I am aware that there are organisations, sometimes retailers offering services, that present themselves as not-for-profit charities but turn out to be nothing like that. I hope that my hon. Friend has specific cases so that we can draw this to the attention of the Charity Commission, which has investigatory powers. I wish him good fortune in raising the matter on the Adjournment either here or in Westminster Hall.

Peter Bone: In 1996-97, the NHS spent £2,600 million on administrative staff. I congratulate the Government on increasing NHS expenditure, but is it not unfortunate that the sum spent on administrative staff has now reached £5.7 billion? May we have a statement or a debate on the NHS, especially spiralling increases in spending on administrative staff?

Jack Straw: I am delighted to debate the national health service any time, including with the hon. Gentleman. I look forward to the time when he recognises the huge improvements as a result of the increases in spending in his constituency.  [Interruption.] He obviously does not know his constituency. Huge improvements have occurred for people living in his constituency as well as throughout the country.

David Anderson: May we have a full debate in Government time about the Government's record on crime, so that we can again expose, in the public interest, the ludicrous position of the Liberal Democrats, which was so clearly exposed last night?

Jack Straw: I would be delighted to have a rerun of last night's debate.

David Heath: So would we.

Jack Straw: The hon. Gentleman was ever a masochist. I recommend to hon. Members of all parties the excellent website, FibDem. It is brilliant and goes through all the promises that the Liberal Democrats have made about the fight against crime, and all their actions inside and outside the House to undermine and sabotage that fight.

Owen Paterson: Last Wednesday, the maternity unit in Oswestry closed. As far as I am concerned, the closure is temporary because the service conforms exactly to the ideas of community care that were outlined in the White Paper that the Secretary of State for Health published last autumn. I discussed those ideas with her and agreed with them entirely. I went to the strategic health authority in Birmingham to discuss the funds and arrangements that could possibly relaunch the service, but was dismayed to read in  The Times that the White Paper has not been effected and there is doubt about where the allocated £750 million has gone. The White Paper contained some good ideas. The Secretary of State should come to the House and explain what is happening and where the money has gone.

Jack Straw: I understand the discomfiture and concern in any constituency where the provision of a service is changed. However, the hon. Gentleman needs to appreciate the reason for the reforms to maternity services. They are happening in order to cater better for mothers' wishes about where they have their babies—there is greater demand for having babies at home or in small centres. At the same time, as anybody who has had an ill baby understands, what matters is having the very best services, which can only be specialist, concentrated and available in rather fewer centres than they are at the moment.  [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) is wittering from a sedentary position. I repeat the point that she wills the end but not the means. She—and her party—keeps voting against all the increases in spending, which have enabled improvements in maternity services as well as other services.

Chris Bryant: Unlike some others, I offer the Leader of the House wholehearted support for the process that he is adopting for breaking the logjam in reforming the House of Lords. The current composition of the House of Lords is risible. At the last by-election for an hereditary peer, Viscount Montgomery of Alamein defeated the seventh Earl of Effingham—incidentally, of the second creation—by 11 votes to five on a single transferable vote. That is more like an episode of "Blackadder" than a proper constitutional process.
	However, is it possible to include an additional vote in the process on whether bishops should sit in the House of Lords? Before my right hon. Friend says, as I suspect that he might, that that would mean disestablishing the Church of England, I simply point out that the Church of Scotland is also established but has no representation in the House of Lords.

Jack Straw: As someone who was once a clerk in holy orders, and may still be so, my hon. Friend should know that the Church of Scotland is Presbyterian and therefore has no bishops. The question of their representation in the Lords does not arise.
	I am genuinely grateful to my hon. Friend for his support, and I am listening to all the voices on the happy issue. However, in the words of the hymn, with which he is familiar, "One step at a time". There will be plenty of opportunities if and when we introduce a Bill for him to table an amendment to remove the right of Anglican bishops to sit in the Lords. However, that can happen only when we reach the sunlit uplands, compared with where we are today.

Mark Lancaster: May we have a debate on the conditions of service of Commonwealth servicemen in our armed forces? During the summer, I had the privilege of sharing a room with Corporal Charlery in Afghanistan. He had been recruited in Antigua and told that, after five years' service, he would be eligible for a British passport. However, he has subsequently been told that his service in Afghanistan—and, indeed, in Germany—will not count towards that five-year period. Is it right to discriminate against our servicemen in that way?

Jack Straw: I commend the hon. Gentleman for his continuing service in the military and knowledge of it. I know a little about the point that he makes. May I suggest that he takes it up with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence? We have no wish to discriminate against Commonwealth citizens who serve in the armed forces. They play an invaluable role in our fighting capacity, as I have personally experienced. Meanwhile, I shall write to my right hon. Friend and let him know the hon. Gentleman's concerns.

David Drew: My right hon. Friend may have seen early-day motion 692 about the environmental liability directive.
	 [That this House notes the special nature of the potential risks arising from the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and limited knowledge of their long-term environmental impacts; and calls on the Government to change its proposals for the implementation of the Environmental Liability Directive which is intended to protect biodiversity, land and water from environmental harm that may arise from the use of GMOs to ensure that there are no defences from strict liability for harm arising from the use of GMOs.]
	The subject is getting an airing in all parties. The Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, North (Barry Gardiner) generously said that there is a balanced argument about whether the Government should seek greater protection for some of our most important sites of scientific interest. Is not it right for this place to debate formally whether the Government should introduce greater protection? Would my right hon. Friend support that?

Jack Straw: I shall look into the matter. As my hon. Friend knows, there is a well-established process for scrutinising directives and regulations from the European Union. I shall raise the matter with my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty), who chairs the European Scrutiny Committee.

Philip Davies: As I failed to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, during Education questions, may I ask the Leader of the House for a debate on adult education? The Government's cuts in adult education have left Bradford college with enrolments down from 8,249 to 5,437 and the courses available down from 944 to 579. In Wharfedale in my constituency, enrolments are down from 1,813 to 915 and the courses are down from 200 to 110. I am sure that the Leader of the House understands our concern. May we have a debate to ascertain whether such cuts in adult education in all our communities throughout the country are the will of the House?

Jack Straw: I continue to serve as a governor of one of the country's finest further education colleges—Blackburn college—and I am not aware that our budget has been cut. Indeed, I know that the budget has increased significantly. Of course, there are pressures on, for example, some aspects of non-vocational adult education. There is an issue about choices, which we must all face if we are to improve the overall skill level of the British people. Those choices would confront any Conservative Government—more so, because they would spend less—whom the hon. Gentleman supported.

Clive Betts: Let me revert to House of Lords reform. My concerns are not about the voting system that my right hon. Friend proposes for this House but the voting system for any elected Members of a reformed House of Lords. Will he ensure that there will be an opportunity for Members of this House to choose between different voting systems for elected Members of a reformed House of Lords? Otherwise, some of us who may want to vote for an element of election to the House of Lords might find ourselves voting against election altogether if we are not satisfied with the voting systems that will be employed.

Jack Straw: I understand my hon. Friend's point; it is a crucial one. Three alternative systems are outlined in the White Paper, which marks the start of this phase of the debate about the reform programme. There will have to be a huge amount of debate between now and any Bill becoming law, to pin down all the crucial aspects of the process and to ensure the widest possible consensus.

John Baron: Given that the A-10 tapes showing the death of Lance Corporal Matty Hull reveal no technology secrets but only incompetence, does the Leader of the House understand the strength of public concern that the Government are showing crass hypocrisy when dealing with British servicemen and their families? On the one hand, they praise the servicemen at the Dispatch Box, while on the other, they refuse to help their grieving families when they need to get to the truth.

Jack Straw: I certainly salute the families concerned. I happened to see the interview with Mrs. Susan Hull last night on the BBC news, and it was one of the most dignified and moving interviews of that kind that I have ever seen. I do not accept the hon. Gentleman's second point. We have been profoundly concerned about this matter. He will appreciate, not least from his own military experience, that because the evidence was in the hands of an ally from whom we had to obtain it, there were difficulties in so doing.

Diana Johnson: Has my right hon. Friend considered the new gender equality duty that will come into force in April this year, and its impact on the operation of the House of Commons—in particular, on the hours that we sit?

Jack Straw: I have not looked specifically at that matter, but I would be happy to do so. Only recently, another female new Member told me that she preferred the current balance of hours because she found them family friendly, rather than working nine-to-five every day of the week. I am pleased to have had the opportunity—thanks to spending 18 years in opposition—to participate in the upbringing of my children, and it was the old hours that enabled me to take my children to school and to see them while my wife was working a nine-to-five day. If we had had our current hours at that time, my opportunities to bond with my children would have been far fewer. I do not wish to disagree with my hon. Friend, but there are many different opinions on this matter. It is not a question of people being either reactionary or progressive. We are all in favour of ensuring that the House is as family friendly as possible. One of the things that we have changed completely—thank God—is the practice of sitting without purpose into the small hours of the night. That is a really important change, because that practice was very disruptive. In terms of being able to balance work and family life, particularly if there is a working spouse, I personally think that we do not need to go any further with these so-called new hours.

Nigel Evans: I suspect that the Leader of the House did not realise how isolated he was on the voting system for the reform of the House of Lords until he received 100 per cent. support from the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant).
	May I back the call for a debate on cancer services in the NHS? I am sure that we have all encountered situations in our own constituencies in which, owing to the fact that the NICE has not adjudicated on a particular drug, it is up to the primary care trust to determine whether to provide it. My constituent, Mr. Keith Ditchfield, is having to spend thousands of pounds of his own money to get a drug called Nexaver. The drug has the backing of the National Cancer Research Institute, yet the local primary care trust will not pay for it. May we have an urgent debate to ensure that we stop this postcode lottery and reinvent what was the national health service in this country?

Jack Straw: If the hon. Gentleman is talking about reinventing the national health service as it was when it was being run by the Conservatives for 18 years, we do not want to go there. He knows very well that we had to have fairer systems for making judgments about the availability of treatments, and that is what NICE is there for. He will also be aware, as he shares a constituency boundary with me, that, for decades, the whole area was calling for a new general hospital to serve the whole area, and that it took a Labour Government to provide the funds for that. It is under a Labour Government that the new Blackburn royal infirmary—serving his constituents as well as mine—has opened.

Jim Sheridan: May we have an urgent debate on the threatened break-up of the United Kingdom, and the subsequent cost to the taxpayer? My right hon. Friend might be aware that figures released today suggest that the cost of independence in Scotland alone would run to some £8 billion of taxpayers' money. Does he agree that that £8 billion would be better spent on enhancing our public services and defending our country?

Jack Straw: I certainly do. The Union works in the interests of Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland. I am in no doubt whatever that, were it to be broken, it would, tragically, be the people of Scotland who would suffer the most, by a very long way.

Future of Buses

[Relevant documents: The Eleventh Report from the Transport Committee, Session 2005-06, on Bus Services across the UK, HC 1317, and the Government's response thereto, (Third Special Report, Session 2006-07, HC 298).]
	 Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. —[Kevin Brennan.]

Stephen Ladyman: To many people, buses are a lifeline. They give people access to health-care, jobs and shops, and allow them to stay in touch with family and friends. To other people, buses are a convenient option—an alternative to using their car, and an alternative that we want more people to choose.
	Over the last half century, the number of people using our buses has fallen dramatically in many parts of the country. Deregulation two decades ago was supposed to reverse that, but it did not. Since 1997, the decline has slowed down, but not enough. It need not be like this. In places such as York, Cambridge and Brighton, buses are thriving because they are delivering the kind of service that people want. Passengers want local bus services to be regular, affordable, reliable, comfortable and safe. They want pleasant, well-lit bus stops giving good information, easy-to-use ticketing systems and services that link up smoothly with other transport, such as rail services. At a time when we are trying to tackle congestion and promote more environmentally friendly travel, it is vital that the public have good public transport choices.

Denis MacShane: My hon. Friend mentioned the environment. We have all sat behind buses that are emitting filthy diesel smoke. Is there anything that the Government can do—through either the grant system, incentives or perhaps a direct mandate—to insist that, within a fairly short period, buses have engine systems installed that do not emit carbon dioxide and that are compatible with the highest environmental standards? Will the Minister take up that challenge?

Stephen Ladyman: I will certainly respond to that point in more detail later in my speech. My right hon. Friend rightly says that we need to look at the way in which the present bus service operator grant is working, to see whether it is properly incentivising people to use cleaner engine technologies. We also need to continue to work with the European Union on the directives that cover the improvement in pollution standards for diesel engines. He has put his finger on an important issue, and it is one that the Government and industry are closely interested in and are already looking at.
	The headline statistic for passenger use is striking: two out of three public transport journeys in Britain are made by bus—more than 4 billion passenger journeys a year in England alone. In some areas of the country, provision is good, with bus operators and authorities working in partnership. In others, however, it is poor. We want to see bus services work in every community, in every part of the country.
	That is why, last year, the Government decided to take a long, hard look at bus services. That work was led by the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln (Gillian Merron), who will wind up this debate. We published our conclusions in the document "Putting Passengers First; the Government's proposals for a modernised national framework for bus services". Those proposals are designed with one thing in mind—to give passengers a better service.
	The measures that we have put forward are aimed at ensuring that the punctuality of services improves; creating better partnership working, including making what are called quality contracts—in which bus operators can bid to be the sole provider of a service in a given area—a more practical option where appropriate; and giving community transport a bigger role in providing services in areas poorly served by other transport. One further issue that we are considering is whether changes to current bus subsidies would help better to deliver the Government's objectives on congestion, the environment and accessibility, which relates exactly to the point raised by my right hon. Friend a moment ago.

David Drew: Have the Government looked at the subsidy regime in rural areas? There is a clear misuse of funds in such areas—not corruption, but misuse in the sense that we are not benefiting from the best use of the money. Is it not time for a wholesale look at some of the Spanish practices that exist? I am told, for example, that bus companies receive payment in connection with bus stops that have not been used for donkeys' years. That needs to be brought into the open and dealt with.

Stephen Ladyman: If my hon. Friend has specific examples of what he describes as "Spanish practices" he should report them to his local authority, which is responsible for ensuring that matters are dealt with properly in the community. As for his general point, we said in our document that we wanted to know people's views on the way in which subsidies operate. For instance, the current bus service operators grant is based on consumption of diesel. Is that the right way in which to subsidise bus transport if we want it to become more environmentally friendly, and is it robust from an accounting point of view?

David Heath: May I pursue the point made by the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) about problems in rural areas? The Minister said that he wanted every community to benefit from bus transport. There are 120 villages in my constituency, a large number of which have no bus service at all. Some, like my own village of Witham Friary, officially have a bus service, but there is only one bus a week, and such a service is not of enormous value. How can we provide a proper public transport system with the flexibility that people need in rural areas? Have the Government a real strategy for that?

Stephen Ladyman: We want to provide improved services for every community and every type of community, but doing so cost-effectively is obviously a problem, and in rural communities it is particularly difficult. We are providing substantial subsidy around the country— about £2.5 billion a year in England alone—but it is up to local authorities, which know most about their communities and where the problems are, to create partnerships that can deliver services to those communities. They need not be commercial services: community transport is an option, and we have suggested ways in which that might be made more sustainable and effective. I encourage the hon. Gentleman and his council to respond to the consultation document by suggesting ways of dealing with problems in rural communities.

Karen Buck: We in London are particularly proud of the investment and the partnership between the Mayor and the Government, which have helped to increase bus use. Indeed, in recent years London has seen the only major modal shift towards buses in any world city.
	Does my hon. Friend share our grave concern about the fact that, in their alternative budget, Conservative members of the Greater London authority propose to end free transport for those under 18, and the fact that councillors in the London borough of Ealing are expressing enthusiasm for the removal of free public transport for older people? Does he agree that the decision to invest in free transport for children and elderly people in London is one of the reasons why we have achieved such phenomenal growth in bus use in the city?

Stephen Ladyman: I entirely agree. It is not for me to comment on the specific position in London, but I was very surprised when I heard about the Conservatives' proposals, which are in complete contrast to comments that they make in public. I thought it extraordinary that they should wish to limit bus services in that way. I have no doubt that my hon. Friend and other London Members will make their views known forcefully, possibly even in this debate.

Gwyneth Dunwoody: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. He is being very indulgent.
	So far, the Government have not responded to the suggestion that some bus companies are virtually blackmailing local authorities by saying that if they enter into the quality contracts that the Minister has recommended to us today, they will receive no co-operation from them—that is, from the private bus companies involved. In the event of legal action, will the Government undertake to indemnify local authorities against this wholly pernicious attack?

Stephen Ladyman: If there is evidence that that is happening, we will react to it very strongly. We will engage with local authorities that feel they are under such pressure to find out how best we can support them and deal with it. If a local authority decides that it is in the best interests of its local public to enter into a quality contract and wins the case, a private operator that does not go along with that decision will find itself unable to provide services and will lose out commercially. It is therefore in operators' interests at least to co-operate in the planning of such schemes, but if my hon. Friend has specific examples we would like to hear about them, and we will certainly take them up.

Paul Truswell: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Stephen Ladyman: I should like to make a little more progress first.
	We are also introducing separate, but perhaps related, legislation to help our most vulnerable citizens by improving access to free bus travel. From April 2008, some 11 million older and disabled people will be entitled to free off-peak local bus travel anywhere in the country. That builds on recent improvements in the scheme introduced last April which allows free off-peak bus travel in local authority areas. The improvements will enable concessionary pass holders to use buses free of charge in other local authority areas in order to use important services, and to keep in touch with friends and family who may not live just down the road.

Mark Lazarowicz: Obviously, it is good news that England has followed the example of the Labour-led Scottish Executive in introducing a national concessionary scheme, but it does not quite cover the entire country. Although it is possible for pensioners to travel from Cornwall to Northumberland—or, under the Scottish scheme, from Berwick to Orkney—there are no cross-border arrangements. I am not suggesting that people should be able to travel from Cornwall to Orkney, but it would be quite convenient for older citizens in Newcastle to be able to travel to Edinburgh, and vice versa.

Stephen Ladyman: It would be an interesting bus that could travel from Cornwall to Orkney, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right in principle. We are discussing what we can do about the matter with the devolved Administrations.

Paul Truswell: rose—

Kevan Jones: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Stephen Ladyman: I will give way first to my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Mr. Truswell).

Paul Truswell: I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for eventually giving way to me. May I return him to what he was saying about quality contracts? The Government obviously wish to make them a more realistic option, but the process described in "Putting Passengers First" seems unduly convoluted. Has he or his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made any assessment of how long it would take from start to finish?

Stephen Ladyman: It is true that making quality contracts more practical is a key objective in the document, but I do not agree that the process is convoluted. It seems quite straightforward to me. We propose that if a local authority considers it to be in the public interest and can make a case for its being in the public interest, it should be an option. If the authority opts for the contract and local operators disagree with it, there will be an independent appeal process. If local authorities consider that too convoluted, they can respond to the document and to our consultation on the draft Bill, and we will try to deal with their concerns.

Paul Rowen: May I return the Minister to the subject of concessionary fares? A national scheme has been operating north of the border, and one is being proposed for Wales. Does the Minister agree that if a national scheme operated in England, it might be possible to reduce fraud and disadvantages such as passenger transport authorities being forced to cut spending in other areas? If a scheme were administered nationally, we would know where the money was going, and some authorities would not lose out.

Stephen Ladyman: I thought that the Liberal Democrats were in favour of devolution and taking power away from the centre and giving it to local authorities, but I think that I have just heard a bid for us to take control of bus services away from local authorities and bring it back into Whitehall, which is a bizarre suggestion.
	We are proposing—there will be plenty of opportunities for this to be discussed in the House—a scheme under which we will provide additional funding to make it possible to have a system in which older and disabled people can travel anywhere in England for free, and after discussion with the devolved Assemblies we might be able to expand that to anywhere in the United Kingdom. I do not think that the idea that we should backtrack on local authority control of bus services is a goer, but I will be interested to hear the contribution of the hon. Member for Rochdale (Paul Rowen).

Kevan Jones: I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for giving way, and I join him in welcoming the free bus passes for the elderly. They have been tremendously welcomed in my North Durham constituency, but many of my elderly constituents are now finding that because Go Northern has removed bus services from isolated villages in my constituency, they have no access to a bus at all. The latest example of that is the community of Pelton Fell having its No. 739 bus removed without any consultation with local people. Therefore, although elderly people have got a free bus pass thanks to a Labour Government, thanks to a heartless bus company some of them have no access to a bus.

Stephen Ladyman: That is why it is right that we give control of such issues to local authorities and to local passenger transport authorities. Local people who know what the local issues are, and who know when local services are being withdrawn, can try to build partnerships with the private sector to fill gaps in services. If the private sector is acting in the way that my hon. Friend suggests, it is up to the local council to decide whether it wants to step in and provide a subsidy for a particular scheme, or to provide the service by means of a community transport option, or—if it cannot build a successful partnership—it might need to think about having a quality contract in future in order to be able to put in place the sort of service that will provide buses to such isolated villages.

Angela Smith: Given my hon. Friend's welcome comments on community local governance, does he consider it appropriate that traffic commissioners or transport tribunals should sit in judgment on the merits of a quality contract? Should not local government make such decisions in consultation with local people?

Stephen Ladyman: Under our proposals, it will be for local government to make a public interest case for a quality contract. Having made such a case and having moved towards having a quality contract, if commercial operators feel that they have been unfairly disadvantaged and not properly consulted, there must be an appeal process for them to go through. We have suggested that there should be such an independent appeal process, but I hope that it will never be used because I hope that local authorities that decide to go down that route will involve everybody in making their decision.

Clive Betts: I wish to make an important point. What the Minister is trying to explain is slightly different from what appears on page 43 of "Putting Passengers First". It says there not that there can be an appeal when a local authority has reached a decision about going ahead with a quality contract, but that that automatically goes to a senior traffic commissioner, acting together with a panel of experts, who decides whether to approve it. Beyond that, there is an appeal to the transport tribunal. However, at the interim stage involving the traffic commissioner there is no appeal. The commissioner has a right to determine whether the local authority, acting in the public interest, is correct or not. That second guessing of an elected body causes great concern.

Stephen Ladyman: I have heard my hon. Friend's point and it will be taken into consideration. He is right that a senior traffic commissioner and a panel of experts review the decision to go to a quality contract to make sure that it is appropriate and in the public interest, and there then is an independent appeal process that operators can go through. If some hon. Friends feel that that is too convoluted or that it is unfair, they should put their comments to us and we will take them on board. I think that there is an appropriate protection in the light of the evidence that we have so far received, but I encourage hon. Friends to communicate their views.

Ian Stewart: I welcome the draft Bill, but I remind my hon. Friend that some of us warned Ministers in 2000 that the voluntarist approach would not be successful, and I think that it is fair to say that it has not been successful to date. The intention behind the draft Bill is good, but will the Minister assure me that the powers that local authorities and passenger transport executives will be given will mean that I can be sure that trains stop at my Swinton stations and that the bus routes will be kept going through my constituency of Eccles?

Stephen Ladyman: I would be surprised if the draft Bill included a specific Swinton stations and Eccles clause, but my hon. Friend can table an amendment on that if he wishes. The voluntarist approach has worked in some parts of the country—in some communities it has worked very well, but in others it has completely failed. We have put forward our proposals because we want everybody to have top quality bus services and the opportunity of increased bus patronage. My hon. Friend might have been prescient when the proposed legislation that became the Transport Act 2000 was being discussed in respect of his own local authority, but he should not assume that that is the case for everywhere in the country.
	Let me make a little progress. Many colleagues want to speak—at least many Labour Members do. That there are so few Members present on the Opposition Benches shows what the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats think about the importance of buses, and I note in particular that the Liberal Democrats have been able to put up only a Front-Bench spokesman to contribute to this important debate on public transport.
	The House has debated on many occasions the issue of why no quality contract or franchising schemes have been made under the Transport Act 2000, although a number of local transport authorities have supported them in principle. The Government's review has concluded that the barriers to quality contracts have been set too high. We recognise that they are not the right model for everywhere, but we want to make them a more realistic option for those authorities that consider that they would best address the problems facing their areas. They could be particularly valuable where they are part of a package of measures to improve public transport and reduce urban congestion.
	We also recognise the need to safeguard the legitimate interests of bus operators. Currently, a quality contract can be offered only if it is the only practicable way to improve services in a given area, and the "only practicable" test is set out in legislation. We propose to replace that test with a more objective and measurable public interest test, and in order to protect operators we will replace the Secretary of State as approval authority with an independent body chaired by the senior traffic commissioner, and give a right of appeal to the transport tribunal. Those changes will make quality contracts a realistic option for authorities to pursue.
	It is also clear that one of the biggest factors that will put off existing and potential passengers is lack of punctuality. If services are late—or, if I dare say so, early—or do not turn up at all, they will not be an attractive alternative to the car. Currently, bus operators are not required to provide records of punctuality, although many monitor that for their own purposes. We propose to work with the industry to develop a new performance regime that will place bus operators under a duty to keep records of the punctuality of their services, and to provide regular, reliable data to the traffic commissioner.
	We also recognise that many matters affecting punctuality are outside the operator's control, so we want to give the traffic commissioners more leverage over the local authorities as well, and to encourage them to work with operators on remedial measures. If performance fails to improve, there will be penalties that they can impose on operators. If the traffic commissioners are dissatisfied with performance on the local authority side, we propose that they should apply to the Secretary of State to use his intervention powers under the Traffic Management Act 2004.

Nigel Evans: Another thing that puts off passengers is hikes in bus fares. Lancashire county council is looking to plug a big hole that it has in its budget. Last year, it put up fares, which put a lot of youngsters off the idea of going to school by bus. This year, it is cutting real services, which the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones) said earlier is happening in his constituency. What protection can the Government give to the people of Lancashire—particularly those living in rural areas—in order to ensure a future for their bus services?

Stephen Ladyman: Of course, it is up to local authorities to build partnerships with local bus operators and to make sure that subsidies are properly targeted where they can best be used, in order to guarantee the success of these services. If they are unable to do that under the current powers, they might be in a better position to do so under the proposed new ones. I should point out that under this Government, the public purse is now providing £2.5 billion a year to subsidise bus services throughout the country. That money is spent on ensuring that services are available in isolated places, and that the hon. Gentleman's constituents, for example, have access to decent services. I fail to see, however, how his party's proposal to cut public expenditure by £16 billion would allow local authorities to receive more of the funding that they need to improve services.
	The transport innovation fund will also allow local authorities to develop and deploy smarter, more innovative solutions to congestion in their areas. Up to £200 million a year—and possibly more—is being made available to authorities from 2008. Hard demand-management measures, including road pricing, will be introduced alongside significant improvements to public transport. As we have seen from the example of London, the introduction of road pricing will create a growing market for buses. The provision of improved bus services will be integral to establishing the bus as a viable alternative to the car.

Angela Smith: I thank my hon. Friend for giving way once more; he is very generous. Is not one of the key measures in delivering better local bus services the exemption of such services from competition legislation, which is getting in the way of through-ticketing and sensible timetabling?

Stephen Ladyman: My hon. Friend needs to look at these proposals in the round. If it is not possible through the voluntary or the statutory partnership arrangements to deal with the issues that concern her, her local authority might want to look at a quality contract. Such a contract does not put an end to competition in a particular area; rather, it offers a different way of providing competition, and it will enable us to deliver to other parts of the country some of the benefits of a franchising scheme that we have seen in London.

Mark Lancaster: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. He talks about building partnerships, which we all agree is very important. Milton Keynes unitary authority is geographically very small, and it is surrounded by Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire. Most buses go into Milton Keynes, but many people in the surrounding doughnut do not want to commute to Milton Keynes, but to Northampton, Bedford or Buckingham. What can the Minister do to encourage the building of partnerships between local authorities to enable the creation of such routes? At the moment, that is not happening.

Stephen Ladyman: It is not for central Government to do everything. There is not a steel fence around Milton Keynes that prevents its authority from talking to other authorities in the area, or vice versa. It is for local authorities to get together and address these issues for themselves. We provide the powers and the funding, and it is for local authorities to use them to best advantage to make sure that the services are of a type of which constituents such as the hon. Gentleman's can make use. Of course, we are not only providing bus services, we are rapidly expanding train services and making a lot of funding available for local authorities. If a local authority wants to bid for funding from the transport innovation fund and to convince us that it is a good bid, it will have to look at issues such as the surrounding areas and the partnership arrangements between local councils.

Kevan Jones: I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way again. Just before Christmas, my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Dr. Blackman-Woods) and I had a meeting with our local bus companies and the county council, and one issue that we talked about was through-ticketing. They said that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Ms Smith) pointed out, competition law prevents through-ticketing and they could not legally implement it. Through-ticketing would, however, be very beneficial to my constituents and others.

Stephen Ladyman: We are working closely with the Office of Fair Trading in examining such issues. If authorities have received legal advice that they would be in breach of competition law if they provided what would be sensible new arrangements, we need to know about such examples and to address this issue as part of the review. That is certainly what we will try to do.

Angela Smith: rose—

Stephen Ladyman: If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I will not give way. A lot Labour Members, in particular, want to speak, so let me make a little more progress.
	It is clear that a key factor in areas where buses are popular is the strength of partnership working between local authorities and bus operators. Although there are statutory powers in the Transport Act 2000, all the arrangements currently in force have been purely voluntary. I am pleased to note that a statutory scheme has recently been created in Sheffield—my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Ms Smith) will be glad to know—and will soon come into force. Such voluntary arrangements often work remarkably well, but there are limits to what can be done in locations where there is more than one operator, because of constraints in competition legislation. We propose to develop a new legal test to determine when multi-operator agreements are permissible.
	As well as changes to the voluntary model, we also want to extend the scope of statutory partnership schemes, so that they can cover minimum frequencies and co-ordination of timings and, possibly, allow some control over maximum fares. We also want to make the schemes more flexible, so that the facilities provided by local authorities and the service improvements made by operators can be phased in over time.
	Although the bus review was mainly about commercial provision, we also fully recognise the important role that the voluntary transport sector plays, and realise that it could do even more if certain restrictions were lifted. Community transport groups are major providers of specialised services for older and disabled people, but their powers under section 22 of the Transport Act 1985 to provide local services for the general public are underused. We therefore propose to lift the restriction on paying drivers on those services more than expenses, which will encourage more drivers to come forward and allow the sector to expand. We also propose to lift the restriction regarding vehicles with more than 16 passenger seats, so that larger buses can be used. We hope that that will encourage more local voluntary groups to fill the gaps in commercial services and to reach the places that buses cannot realistically go.
	We also need to consider whether local government, particularly in metropolitan areas, is empowered to take the hard decisions that need to be taken for the effective delivery of transport in local areas. For instance, there are concerns about the decision-making split in passenger transport authority areas, whereby the passenger transport executive has no powers over roads, traffic, parking and bus priority measures. We consider that governance reform in PTA areas should be an important part of establishing a quality contract scheme in a metropolitan area, and we propose to address that issue through the draft road transport Bill.
	Finally, I come to bus subsidy. After declining in the decade after 1986, bus subsidy in England has almost doubled in real terms since 1997-98. Some £2.5 billion of revenue funding supports bus services in the form of reimbursement of concessionary fares, service subsidies and the bus service operators grant. We need to ensure that that spending contributes effectively to our wider objectives. For example, BSOG is currently a grant from central Government related to fuel usage. We will consider whether there is scope for reforming BSOG to link it more directly to bus operators performance or environmental outcomes. We recognise the importance of understanding fully the potentially adverse impact or unintended consequences of any reform, so as I have said, we will consider these issues with stakeholders.

Ann Coffey: I thank the Minister for giving way. The Oyster card system is very popular with people who travel on the buses in London because it is a pre-payment system and there are concessionary fares, for example. The other good thing is that it enables bus operators to know exactly who is travelling on their buses. Will his proposals make it easier for Greater Manchester passenger transport authority to introduce such a system for the convenience both of passengers and of bus operators?

Stephen Ladyman: I would certainly hope so. My hon. Friend is right. The convenience of the Oyster card is one more factor that encourages people on to the buses in London, and I would like to see similar arrangements throughout the country. I hope that our proposals facilitate such schemes and if anybody has any reason to think that they may be a barrier to the introduction of schemes, we would like to hear about it as part of this debate.

Martin Linton: Is my hon. Friend aware that Conservative members of the Greater London authority are trying to withdraw the free bus concession for 17 and 18-year-olds?

Stephen Ladyman: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for emphasising that point, although I was aware of it and I was reminded by my hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck) earlier. It is a baffling proposal and could only come from Conservatives. I may be misleading the House, because it could also have come from Liberal Democrats in other areas, who make equally silly suggestions. In London, it could only come from the Conservatives. It will be interesting to hear how the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson) justifies that proposal.

Clive Betts: Is my hon. Friend aware of real concerns that some bus operators are trying to milk the concessionary fares system for pensioners? First has just put fares in Sheffield up by 10 per cent., which means that it will want 10 per cent. more for every concessionary fare. The bus grant is going up by 4 per cent. to compensate the PTE for the concessionary fares. At that rate, within five years all the money that the PTE has to spend on bus services will go on concessionary fares with nothing left for tendered services, unless the system is significantly reformed.

Stephen Ladyman: I hear what my hon. Friend says. It is for the local authority, especially when renewing arrangements with local operators, to ensure that they get value for money from the concessionary fares scheme. If they do not feel that they are getting value for money from the schemes, they need to take appropriate action. If they feel that they do not have the powers to take appropriate action, I hope that they will feed that into the consultation so that we can be made aware of the problem. If the situation in my hon. Friend's area is as he says, we should all be concerned.
	Local authorities and private operators know that they need to work together to deliver modern, integrated transport services, and we are committed to giving those areas that want them the powers to provide better services that meet the needs of the local population. The publication of "Putting Passengers First" was intended to get people talking and there will be further public scrutiny of the proposals when we publish the draft Bill.
	No one says that it will be easy and there is no one-size-fits-all solution, but the opportunities are there, provided we are bold and the right local solutions are put in place. The prize is a transport system that will meet the challenges of the future and bus services across the country that give passengers in every community what they rightly expect.

Owen Paterson: It is a pleasure to speak in this debate on the future of buses, but it is worth first looking back at what has happened over the past 40 years. The standard of living has improved over time and, to put it bluntly, as people have become more prosperous they have migrated from public transport to cars. Some of the most interesting passages in the Eddington report were the details of how car travel in Great Britain doubled in just seven years between 1953 and 1960. It doubled again between 1960 and 1967. By 1990, the distance travelled by car had increased to more than ten times the 1953 figure.
	It is no real surprise, therefore, that bus travel should have declined. It was at its peak in the 1950s, when there were 16,455 million passenger journeys by bus per year. By 1971 that figure had halved. By 1999 it had halved again, to about 4,350 million. The number has picked up in recent years, to 4,719 million.

Angela Smith: Car use in south Yorkshire increased significantly after deregulation. What is the hon. Gentleman's explanation for that?

Owen Paterson: That is the point that I am making. With general prosperity, people have chosen to go by car and it is against that background that we should consider the use of buses. If the hon. Lady will let me develop my theme, I will come to that point.
	Buses are still very important. The bus and coach sector today has approximately one seventh of its market share in 1952, when the industry accounted for some 42 per cent. of all travel in Great Britain. That share had fallen to 28 per cent. by 1960 and by 1973 it had dwindled to 14 per cent. Since 1991, the market share has stabilised at around 6 per cent. The overall cost of motoring has remained at or below its 1980 level in real terms. By contrast, public transport fares have risen in real terms since 1980. In 2004, bus and coach fares were 37 per cent. higher than in 1980. Over the same period, average disposable income increased by more than 95 per cent. in real terms. It is also worth pointing out that council tax receipts increased between 1995 and 2000 by 94 per cent.
	Transport by any mode has therefore become more affordable, but with a significantly greater improvement in the affordability of car use than that of public transport, especially buses. Despite those external factors, the bus continues to remain critical. Many cities have been working hard to reverse the downward trend of bus use, as wealth creation has raised the importance of environmental and quality of life factors, as the Minister mentioned. There are still some 4.1 billion bus journeys per year in England, equivalent to some 187 bus journeys per household. Although the sector accounts for just 8 per cent. of all journeys, the bus remains the most widely used public transport mode. Interestingly, across the UK the number of bus trips is twice the number of rail and underground trips put together.

Karen Buck: Does the hon. Gentleman therefore support the measures that have been taken in London by the Mayor, including congestion charging, which has helped to speed up public transport journeys? Will he take this opportunity to make it clear that he dissociates himself from the initiatives by London Conservatives to undermine free transport for under-18s and the freedom pass for pensioners?

Owen Paterson: I am happy to discuss that issue and I shall come on to the issue of London in a moment. There has been a huge increase in subsidy in London, which has unique circumstances. On the issue of fares for under-18s, it is a devolved issue, but as I understand it, my Conservative colleagues are concerned that the service is sloppily administered and it is not clear who qualifies for it. There is also a problem with public disorder and vandalism. However, the hon. Lady should take the issue up with Conservative members on the GLA, because it is a devolved issue.
	Buses are critical in supporting labour markets in urban areas. A quarter of the work force in cities such as Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield and Leeds travel by bus. A quarter of all households in England—two fifths in London—are without access to a car and that is a principal driver of continued bus demand.
	As the Minister said, buses also have a role to play in tackling road congestion. In the right circumstances, buses can be important in encouraging modal shift from the car in congested areas. Although buses typically tend to support non-business trips, without them some such trips would, potentially, be made by car. Buses can therefore play a valuable role in attracting leisure and commuter travellers off the road network, freeing up road space and reducing travel time for business and freight traffic. Inevitably, there is a price to pay for that and it can be too high, as was beginning to be the case before deregulation.
	At this point, I wish to pay public tribute to the late Nicholas Ridley, who became Lord Ridley of Liddesdale. I am completely partisan on the subject, because he was my wife's uncle. He was one of the most remarkable members of that Conservative Government. He had many talents and was a brilliant cook, water-colourist and architect.

Gwyneth Dunwoody: I had the delight of opposing Nicholas Ridley when he introduced the Transport Act 1985 and he always had great clarity of thought. He had the simple attitude that buses cost too much, the people who used them were mainly poor and that they should be removed from that category as soon as possible. He was a sensitive colourist and a most insensitive Secretary of State for Transport.

Owen Paterson: I am very grateful to the hon. Lady, who is my near neighbour, for that intervention. I predicted that it might come along. However, 85 per cent. of the decline in bus use over the past 40 years took place before deregulation, and 15 per cent. happened after it. Nicholas Ridley arrested the decline—[ Interruption.] That is what the figures show.

Graham Stringer: It is appropriate that the hon. Gentleman should reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) with humour and not objective facts. He is well informed, and will have read the report from the Transport Select Committee entitled "Bus Services Across the UK". Does he agree that table 2, which disaggregates the effect of deregulation in the metropolitan areas from London, shows that deregulation added to the general decline in bus use?

Owen Paterson: No, I do not. As I said, 85 per cent. of the decline of the past 40 years occurred before deregulation. That decline continued afterwards, but tapered off. In London and some other places, bus use has recently increased. The difference between us is that I believe that the decline would have remained precipitate had not deregulation taken place, but it is interesting that the Minister has had to battle today against a barrage of demands from Labour Members for more regulation. At no time in their 10 years in office have the Government hinted that deregulation should be reversed.

Kevan Jones: The hon. Gentleman has referred to London, but does he agree that bus transport in London was never deregulated?

Owen Paterson: That is a good point. London is unique, as I shall explain in a moment.
	The 1985 Act deregulated the bus industry outside London, and road services licensing outside London was abolished from October 1986. At the same time, proposals were introduced to change the structure of the bus industry through privatisations. As the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones) said, London was treated differently: the bus companies were privatised but the capital retained a regulated regime, and all services were secured following competitive tendering.
	A complete change took place. In 1985, 75 per cent. of bus services were in the public sector, but the proportion amounted to only about 7 per cent. by 1997.

Ann Coffey: When did the hon. Gentleman last travel on a bus?

Owen Paterson: I travelled on a bus from Euston station at about 2 pm yesterday.
	The most obvious gain of deregulation was that it forced the franchise market in London and the deregulated markets in other urban areas to achieve substantial and dramatic reductions in operating costs. The largest real-terms reductions in operating costs between 1986-87 and 2005-06 were achieved in Scotland, where they fell by 48 per cent. The PTA areas achieved 47 per cent. cost reductions, and London 34 per cent. That shows that there had been huge waste in the industry, and that deregulation brought about a remarkable change.
	The decline of the bus market has continued since deregulation, but it has slowed down. Overall, passenger numbers in Great Britain have fallen by 19 per cent. since 1985-86, although they have risen again in recent years. A rise of 8.5 per cent. since the lowest point has been driven by London, which now accounts for 38 per cent. of the market. The London market has grown by 59 per cent. since 1985-86, but other areas have suffered major declines in passenger numbers, with the PTAs losing 49 per cent. of passengers and the English shires 57 per cent.
	Labour Members want to believe that regulation works, but a look abroad shows that it does not. In France, in the 10 years to 2004, passenger numbers using urban transport rose by an average of only 1.4 per cent a year. In the same period, the proportion of costs met from fares fell from 51 per cent. to 39 per cent. That compares with average falls of 1.4 per cent. a year in England outside London, where passengers met 68 per cent. of the costs of bus services through fares. Many people look to France as an example of regulation, but the costs are high and the benefits are small.
	In Italy, buses are the main component of public transport use. Between 2002 and 2004, that use fell by 14 per cent. in the largest cities, where all services are regulated and co-ordinated by public authorities. That shows that Italy has not been well served by a regulated public transport system. In Northern Ireland, where the market is still regulated, bus use fell by 3 per cent between 2000 and 2005.
	The Government placed much reliance on the work of Sir Rod Eddington. His report was emphatic about buses, and it is worth quoting what he said in full.
	"This study is strongly of the view that competition forces rather than the alternative model of State ownership and control are the appropriate mechanisms for securing successful economic outcomes in urban areas and delivering bus services that users value. Competition forces create on-going incentives for efficiency and responsiveness of provision to the needs of users. The former has clearly been evident since deregulation, which led to a fall in operating costs in some markets of 50 per cent. There has also been considerable innovation in the bus market following deregulation including improvements in bus fleet, variable bus sizes, out-sourcing of maintenance, smart ticketing and the introduction of part-time working arrangements for employees in the sector."
	A little earlier in the report, when discussing the three broad options that urban areas might adopt to deliver bus services, Eddington said:
	"Underlying each of these options is the principle of employing competitive forces. There is no evidence to suggest that there should be a return to the pre-1986 era where government owned buses."
	I am sure that Ministers are aware that the former Secretary of State for Transport, who is now Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, told the House:
	"I would be wary of saying that we should go back to the pre-1986 situation."—[ Official Report, 2 July 2003; Vol. 408, c. 404.]

Stephen Ladyman: The document being discussed today does not suggest going back to that. The hon. Gentleman is trying to argue that bus deregulation slowed down the decline in patronage, but that slowdown has taken place largely since 1997. Is it not possible that this Government's doubling of bus subsidies to £2.5 billion a year has had rather more to do with it?

Owen Paterson: The Minister needs to be practical. The 1986 measures were not going to have an instantaneous effect in changing people's behaviour. The smoky, clattering old nationalised buses that used to bumble around Shropshire, for instance, had to be got rid of, but that took time. I am trying to help the Minister by giving him some arguments to counter what Labour Members are saying to him.
	Deregulation slowed the decline in bus use but, 20 years later, it is worth looking at imaginative techniques for improving the deregulated regime. My contention is that, without deregulation, the precipitate decline would have continued.

Paul Truswell: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that deregulation has destabilised the bus system? It has led to services constantly being chopped and changed, and diminished passengers' confidence in their reliability. People in Leeds have voted with their feet and taken to their cars—not because they want to, but because there is no alternative.

Owen Paterson: I am sure that the debate will reveal major variations around the country. I shall come to some good examples of how local authorities have made use of the benefits of deregulation and entered into good partnerships locally. However, I do not dispute the hon. Gentleman's knowledge of his area, and it is clear that deregulation has not been so successful in some parts of the country.
	My party is very much in favour of partnership working, but I am adamant about the basic contention that, without the huge efficiency improvements that followed deregulation, the headlong decline in bus use would have continued at a faster rate.
	The Minister pointed out that the biggest change wrought by the Government has been the huge increase in subsidy to £2.5 billion. That has mainly gone on concessionary fares and increased expenditure in London. Indeed, the subsidy has rocketed from £572 million to £711 million recently. What have we got for this in London?

Gwyneth Dunwoody: Buses.

Owen Paterson: Has it worked? It is interesting to look at the passenger figures. The Transport for London annual travel report 2005 stated that the average load was 15 passengers per bus. The mayor's target for 2011 is to increase that average load by 40 per cent. to 19 passengers per bus. Yet the average capacity for a London bus, taking in all types, is 93. The Assembly's transport committee recently commissioned a value for money study of London's buses. Its consultants, Colin Buchanan and Partners, showed that the productivity of London's buses has collapsed. In 1997-98 the buses ran without a subsidy and the average bus carried 13 passengers. By 2005, the buses consumed an annual Government subsidy of £550 million and carried an average of 15 passengers per bus. The subsidy given is like paying the additional passengers to ride the buses.

Andrew Gwynne: My constituents in Greater Manchester would love the equivalent to a London bus service operating in their area. Does the hon. Gentleman not recognise that in places like Greater Manchester, where there has also been a massive increase in subsidy to private bus operators, we have not got a lot in return? The benefit of the London system, with its franchising arrangements, is that bus companies cannot just cherry-pick the profit-making routes; they must take on a whole network. Integration is part of that.

Owen Paterson: I will cite some examples of partnership that have worked. The trick with partnerships is not to overegg the arrangement and kill the advantages of deregulation. The debate will probably reveal great regional variation. The London service is devolved. My Conservative colleagues are convinced that while the increased investment in buses has been good for London, we need to run them so that the services they offer better reflect when people need to use them. The contract should cater for that. However, most of the day buses are running around empty, and at the same frequency as in the rush hour because the operators pay the same either way. That means that the roads are getting more congested during the day because the operators are paid to provide a rush hour service for a fraction of the passengers.

Stephen Ladyman: I am enjoying the hon. Gentleman's analysis of the situation. He seems to be suggesting that the provision of public support for bus services has led to them becoming less cost-effective. As I am keen to learn about Conservative party policy, and I suspect that most of our constituents are too, can he confirm that it is Conservative party policy to withdraw or cut the current public subsidies for bus services?

Owen Paterson: No, I do not know where the Minister got that idea from. We are talking about spending money more effectively. I have just quoted some independent consultants who have shown that bus service productivity in London has collapsed. The Minister stood up and trumpeted that he was cleverly spending a record £2.5 billion; I am quietly trying to analyse whether the money has been spent effectively and for the public good.

Stephen Ladyman: I got that impression from listening to the hon. Gentleman. If subsidy has led to the collapse of a cost-effective bus service, it follows that his party will do something about that. He obviously intends to cut the bus subsidy. Our constituents would like to know that the Conservatives do not support buses, do not want to see a successful bus service throughout the country and will start withdrawing bus subsidies. That will inevitably mean under a Conservative Government that the most vulnerable services, particularly to rural and isolated communities, will disappear first.

Owen Paterson: This is all very depressing. I thought that we were going to have a sensible debate. We are talking about spending a titantic slug of public money more effectively. With this extra money the Minister and his colleagues in the London Assembly have increased bus ridership in London from 13 to 15 passengers on average. I am just asking whether that is a good way of spending public money. My colleagues in the London Assembly are seeing how existing subsidies can be spent more effectively and efficiently.  [Interruption.] The Minister cannot misinterpret what I am saying. He stands up and says that the Government have done a great thing by increasing bus subsidies. I am quietly trying to look and see whether those subsidies have been spent wisely. I am suggesting that my Conservative colleagues in the Assembly could spend that money more effectively.
	We should not get too hung up on London because, in many ways, the London model is unique. First it has had a big increase in subsidy by 548 per cent. at constant prices between 2001 and 2005. That is a 30p subsidy per passenger. The metropolitan areas have had their subsidy reduced by 2.5 per cent. That is a massive contrast.

Paul Truswell: The hon. Gentleman is being uncommonly generous in giving way. Does he accept that another failure of the deregulated system in areas such as west Yorkshire is that it has created a virtual monopoly? When the passenger transport executive puts subsidised services out for contract, it invariably gets just one tender. Is that a good way of spending public money?

Owen Paterson: Again we get regional variation. If hon. Members will let me make some progress, I will give examples of excellent partnerships, in some cases involving one and in others two operators. It can work. It would be helpful if, when the hon. Gentleman catches your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker, he explains why that arrangement has not worked in his area unlike in places such as Hove, Oxford and elsewhere.
	London has had a huge increase in subsidy, but other factors should be taken into account. London's population has increased by 9.2 per cent., whereas in the metropolitan areas the population has declined by 1 per cent. and, if west Yorkshire is excluded, by 2.9 per cent. For huge numbers of people in London, using a car is simply not an option. Unlike other met areas, the city is filled throughout the day by commuters who arrive by train or tube. In London, 80 per cent. of the public use public transport, compared with the west midlands where about 30 per cent. of people use public transport. Furthermore, almost 12 million tourists visit London. That is more than a third of the total tourist traffic in the United Kingdom. Few of them have cars.

Karen Buck: The hon. Gentleman is gravely underestimating the impact that the additional investment and new strategies on bus policy have had in London. The result has been half a billion additional passenger journeys. From what the hon. Gentleman is suggesting, we are led to understand that, if his colleagues have their way, the services most impacted upon will be those to the vulnerable—people who do not fall into his category of economic efficiency—older people, families and young people who have benefited by the equivalent of £1,000 a year through free travel, night services and services to areas that have not been best served by buses hitherto. Is it not true that his drive for efficiency will impact on precisely those vulnerable individuals and communities?

Owen Paterson: I do not see that. I do not see what is good about wasting public money or what is bad about trying to spend existing sums better. The hon. Lady is talking about a nil sum gain. It is not a case of subsidies as they stand: good; any change in the regime: bad. My colleagues in the London Assembly are looking at spending the money more efficiently. I would have thought that she would endorse that, as would her taxpayers. London has seen an increase in its population and attracts many tourists. We must be careful because London is unique in many ways.
	In some urban areas bus usage has been increasing. Eddington was interesting on this and talked about York. Those urban areas tend to be historic towns where car restraints can be easily applied and where there is usually a widespread cultural acceptance of the need for alternative transport.

John Grogan: I represent part of York and it is true that on the arterial routes in and out of the city partnerships have worked quite well, but in many of the villages that I represent, such as Wheldrake and Elvington, there have been cuts in bus services. There is the big controversy in the city about the level of fares. York is often used as an example, but there is great disquiet in the city about the operation of buses.

Owen Paterson: That is a helpful intervention. I was deliberately citing the examples in the Eddington report. As the report was partly published by the Department for Transport and the Treasury I would have thought that the facts would be accepted on both sides of the House, particularly by those on the Labour Benches. The hon. Gentleman has detail on those services in York and it would be interesting to hear more. Indeed, Eddington tells us that York has achieved growth of 50 per cent. over the past five years, 30 per cent. of which was due to park and ride schemes, where one principal bus operator works in voluntary partnership with the unitary authority to run high quality services. The old city centre is obviously unsuitable for cars, so a tough parking regime has been imposed.
	Eddington also refers to Oxford, which offers another example of how congestion can be reduced by a sustained and coherent policy. There has been a 30-year partnership between Oxfordshire county council, Oxford city council, bus operators and others. Growth has been achieved there, while it has been falling in other places. Bus use grew by 80 per cent. between 1988 and 2002 and it continues to increase. The local authority has maintained successful partnerships with two competing operators, but without restraining competition. There are park and ride schemes and the large student population must help to increase bus use, but the overall environment seems to work.
	The Brighton and Hove system was cited by Eddington. The number of passengers has gone up by 62 per cent.,—equivalent to 14 million journeys—between 1993 and 2005. A unitary authority with distinct geographical boundaries operates a voluntary partnership with a single bus operator. What successful schemes have in common is that control and management of the roads and decisions about who runs the buses are in the same hands.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond), who sadly cannot be in the Chamber today, recently received a letter from Roger French, managing director of Brighton and Hove's bus and coach company, which stated that
	"the key ingredients that we have put into the partnership mixture are frequent services—80 per cent. of our passenger journeys are taken on a bus that runs at least every 10 minutes; simple pricing offering value for money; continued, sustained investment in new buses taking advantage of constantly improving technology and comfort and a passion for excellent customer service ... The Local Authority's ingredients are the installation of effective bus priority measures on the road; a robust parking management and enforcement regime; effective enforcement of traffic regulations associated with bus priority measures ... accessible bus stops which are pleasant to wait at with real time information ... As we discussed the private sector is best placed to deal with the first five ingredients ... and ... local authorities are best placed to deal with the second five ingredients".
	That happy pattern does not appear to work in rural areas, about which I have a little local knowledge, like the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath), who has left the Chamber. My constituency has 98 villages and I think one of them has the greatest length of road of any village in England—100 miles in Whixall. People in rural areas who do not have private transport are massively and disproportionately disadvantaged if there is no public transport.
	There are some good schemes and I was delighted by the Minister's comments in response to the Transport Committee's report. Changing the number of passengers allowed to travel in voluntary vehicles and changes relating to driving seem thoroughly worthwhile. Since deregulation, some imaginative schemes have been developed. I will not give too strong a plug to North Shropshire Community Transport Ltd., which is a registered charity and a company. NSCT does not operate buses on a strictly defined route; in effect, there is a dial-a-ride system. On certain days, a bus travels from Wem to Ellesmere and people in a broad swathe of country between the two towns can call it up. Such imaginative schemes should be encouraged, so I am pleased about the changes the Minister proposes to the size of buses and the number of passengers that can be carried by volunteer drivers. Those volunteers do a terrific job and their work is vital.
	Community car schemes are also vital in areas such as mine, where the council pays 48 per cent. and the passengers pay 52 per cent. of the costs. When the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Lincoln (Gillian Merron) replies to the debate, will she tell us whether existing subsidies could apply to community car schemes? A bus is not needed in some areas and a small car would be adequate. As I said, isolated people in rural areas are hugely and disproportionately disadvantaged; they cannot live a proper life, so imaginative local schemes are well worth developing and it is fair to say that they have blossomed since deregulation.
	I take issue with the Government about their separation of funding, organisation and operation. Changing funding distribution from the Countryside Agency to regional development agencies has not helped. Local authorities close to the ground are much better qualified to decide where funding should be allocated, so I would like the Minister's comments on that point.
	More control should be given to local government rather than to traffic commissioners, as has been said. In country areas, the county council is always seen to be the provider of public transport, but it has to conform to regulation by the traffic commissioners and to funding decisions made by the RDAs, which is unsatisfactory.
	The Government are in trouble over disability rights. Since January 2001 all buses coming into service have been required to be accessible, which means they should be fitted with ramps and low floors, and space should be set aside for wheelchairs. By 2017, all buses in Britain must comply with those regulations. The latest figures from the Department for Transport show that only 47 per cent. of buses are accessible. There are exceptions: 100 per cent. of London buses are accessible and the figure in Edinburgh is 75 per cent. However, 38 per cent. of disabled people do not travel on buses or other public transport. They lack confidence in the transport system.

Mark Lazarowicz: I am interested in the hon. Gentleman's two examples. In London, where accessibility is 100 per cent., the transport system is regulated and many Members are happy with that. In Edinburgh, although the system is not regulated, the bus company is municipally owned and there is 75 per cent. accessibility. Does the hon. Gentleman think some conclusions can be drawn from those coincidental facts?

Owen Paterson: I cannot comment on that situation. I am merely asking how the Government intend to implement national legislation and why it is so patchy across the country. The hon. Gentleman may have a point; the franchise system may work in London, but the disability legislation is national and affects a large number of people.
	Twice as many disabled people as non-disabled people have turned down a job interview, medical appointment or social engagement due to difficulty in using buses or other forms of public transport. That is a major problem for them. Fifty-two per cent. of disabled people have difficulty in getting to essential services such as a GP surgery or a hospital, so when will the legislation be implemented?
	The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 required buses to be fully accessible to disabled people, including wheelchair users. It was proposed that new large single-deck buses and new double-deck buses would have to comply by January 2000 and that all single-deck buses would have to comply by 2015. There have subsequently been changes to the legislation. When and how will all those requirements be universally applied?
	Another aspect that has been brought to my attention relates to audible and visible announcement equipment. The regulations for change include provisions on systems to make audible and visual announcements of stations, but it was not possible to include such provisions in the regulations for buses because the technology was not sufficiently well developed at the time. However, there have been improvements, based on global positioning systems, and Transport for London says that the information systems will be fitted for all London buses by 2009. In the Government's view, what is a sensible timetable for the rest of the country? Without those systems, it can be difficult for people with visual impairments and for some people with learning difficulties to use buses, so I would be grateful for the Minister's comments.
	At the Labour party conference, we heard that the Government intended to give local authorities more control, and they set out their policy in "Putting Passengers First"—yet another document. We need to put it in context. It is 10 years since the Government came to power and we are entering the final quarter of their much vaunted 10-year plan for transport. We all remember the glorious words of the Deputy Prime Minister when he said that their goal was
	"the integrated transport system this country needs and deserves. A system fit for the new millennium and of which we can be justly proud".
	There has been much activity by the Department for Transport. We have had the 10-year plan, White Papers, debates on transport Bills, numerous strategic plans and now we have "Putting Passengers First". We have had multi-modal studies, setting out transport priorities, which have then been ignored—a fraught issue in my case, because the A5 is not going to be dualled. We have had a drive from the Government to improve the quality of local transport plans. We have blue skies thinking. We have had Lord Birt and Rod Eddington.
	So, what about "Putting Passengers First"? There has been a lot of surface activity. Is "Putting Passengers First" going to go the way of the previous false starts, the changed directions and the worthless promises? It is full of pious, self-evident truisms, and some extraordinarily banal comments.

Nick Brown: I have listened to the hon. Gentleman's address to the House with considerable interest, but, apart from cutting public expenditure, I have not heard a single policy proposal from the Conservative party. What are his policy proposals on bus travel?

Owen Paterson: At no stage have I talked about cutting subsidies. I have talked about spending subsidies better and analysing whether existing subsidies are being well used. If the right hon. Gentleman will let me make a little progress I will touch on the Conservative party towards the end of my speech. Is he thrilled to support a Government who, after 10 years in power, bring out what is supposed to be a great new radical strategic paper, which says:
	"An efficient transport system is an important ingredient of a strong and prosperous economy"?
	It says:
	"An efficient transport system contributes to stronger and deeper labour markets"
	and
	"A large bus has the potential to carry the equivalent of several fully-loaded cars".
	We are told:
	"Buses must have the right environment in which to prosper."
	I mean, why write this stuff? What does it achieve after 10 years? I am astonished that that he stands up and says what he does when, after 10 years, we are still getting strategy papers with that sort of guff in them.

Nick Brown: I do not see what is wrong with any of that.

Owen Paterson: It is completely bland. There is not a single person who would disagree with it, but we do not progress. What we are looking for is some action. I would have thought that he would have been pressing his Government for that for 10 years. His Government set a target in their 10-year plan of increasing bus journeys by 10 per cent. by 2010. They also wanted to improve the punctuality of services nationally. Then they gave up. They recognised that the target was unattainable and it has been revised twice since 2000. We now have a combined target of increasing bus and light rail usage by 12 per cent. We are changing again.
	There are two key proposals in "Putting Passengers First". We are concerned about quality contracts. There has been concern among passenger transport authorities that if they involve multiple operators in discussions, that might be decreed as anti-competitive. We are concerned about the test. We would not want to see re-regulation by the back door, throwing out some of the advantages that we have seen from deregulation. We are interested in discussing with the Government how the schedule 10 test will be made appropriate. We will be able to see that only when we see the draft Bill. We will have to examine in detail what is meant by a "significantly adverse effect" and a "substantial benefit".
	We are much more in favour of voluntary partnerships. I touched on some examples earlier from Eddington. We would want to look carefully at the tests imposed by the Government. Having looked at the examples abroad, we are not at all convinced that a huge increase in regulation would work. We are seriously concerned about what is being proposed in relation to quality contracts. We would look to see much more work done on voluntary partnerships.

Andrew Gwynne: Does the hon. Gentleman think that it will be feasible for an authority such as Greater Manchester to enter into in excess of 70 different voluntary partnerships with all its different operators?

Owen Paterson: I cited cases earlier where that worked with more than one operator. It might not work for 70 operators. That might involve the creation of a new idea of a partnership. What one has to have is control of the roads and the road network, and of decision making in the allocation of bus routes.
	So, let me talk about our thinking. I am conscious of time moving on and I know that other Members want to speak. As the right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East and Wallsend (Mr. Brown) knows, the Conservative party is reviewing its polices. As I have just said, we are convinced that we will be studying carefully the development of voluntary partnerships, rather than quality contracts. We would like to see the much wider use of modern technology such as transponders, and information technology. We accept that we must review what extra statutory powers beyond their current powers local authorities and PTAs need to make partnerships work. We will review the tools of demand management available to PTAs. We will also review the obligations on private operators within partnership arrangements. That includes the minimum duration of the operation of a service—that was touched on earlier in relation to bus wars—co-operative ticketing arrangements, and data storing. We would also look at the request from some local authorities for minimum acceptable standards of operation to be increased.

Stephen Ladyman: rose—

Owen Paterson: I would like to make some progress, but I will give way.

Stephen Ladyman: I am not going to hold the hon. Gentleman up for much longer. Will he just confirm that he has taken 42 minutes to say that, broadly, he supports the Government document?

Owen Paterson: Not entirely, no. There was an attempt to misinterpret my comments on subsidies and to say that we were demanding a cut. What I think is interesting is that the Minister has had to defend his position against a wall of opinion behind him, which we will hear later. We probably have quite a lot in common. We believe that deregulation worked. He has quite clearly stated that he is not going to unwind deregulation. What we are both looking at is how we can use subsidies more sensibly and effectively, and how we can get local authorities working more effectively with private operators. There probably is not an enormous difference between us, but he has to think about why he is debating this matter after 10 years and whether he is really satisfied and convinced that the huge increase of £2.5 billion is being well spent in every case.
	My final point relates to the environment, which the Minister did not really touch on. We would definitely look at targeting existing subsidies to see how we could promote more fuel efficiency and improved emission standards.
	In conclusion, we believe that deregulation arrested the headlong decline in bus use. We would strongly oppose any re-regulation, but we are open to imaginative improvements to the current arrangements.

Graham Stringer: I welcome the Government's White Paper, "Putting Passengers First". Thinking about that title, one wonders where they have been for the last 20 years. But it is a good title and I trust that my hon. Friends on the Front Bench will put into practice some of the ideas and proposals in the document. I am not going to use the time available to me to go into why I think that the hurdles in the White Paper are too high to replace the only available alternative test, because the Minister has made it clear that he is open to detailed suggestions. I guess that other hon. Members will make those suggestions during the debate. I also agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) that the concessionary fare scheme looks as though, financially, it could run out of control. That is a great worry to all the passenger transport authorities in England. Again, the Minister has said that he will look at that and I am content that he will do so.
	Before I get on to the meat of what I want to say, I want to make one or two statistical points in relation to some of the comments that have been made. We are all proud that passenger numbers are going up for the first time for some years, but, in looking at those statistics, we need to be careful that we are comparing like with like. The new concessionary fare scheme came into force from last year and obviously the comparison no longer involves the same scheme as before. People who need to get to a hospital or to work may well still not be getting buses, although the overall headline figures are improving considerably. I hope that my hon. Friends on the Front Bench will look at some way of taking the statistics apart so that we can make a real comparison between what happened before the start of concessionary scheme in 1986 and what is happening now.
	I would also like to look at the comparisons that have been made by Members on both Front Benches in relation to areas where quality partnerships or the current deregulation system are said to work. I just want to point out two or three facts.
	Although passenger numbers have increased, the route network has declined in almost all small towns. Some people do not have access to services, even though more people are using them. That statistical point is similar to the one that I made previously. As my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) said, those towns and small areas are often served by what are essentially monopoly providers, or municipal bus companies. It is difficult to understand how one can compare such areas with the great cities of Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield, Leeds, Newcastle and Liverpool. However, those are not my main points.
	I have great respect for the Minister and the Under-Secretary, who are tough debaters. By the end of the consultation process, I want to feel that they are up to the fight with the bus companies. Some of the debate over the past 10 to 20 years has lacked reality. We hear talk of a Panglossian world—a Jack and Jill world—in which if only the naughty children in the passenger transport authorities and the bus companies would get on a bit better, shake hands and make friends, everything would be nice. We hear phrases such as, "We want constructive partnerships; they are the key to delivery", but if we look at what is happening we see that, in the case of the five biggest bus companies, we are dealing with avaricious, multinational companies that are public subsidy junkies. A terrific amount of public money goes into those companies and they are aggressively anti-PTAs and anti-county councils because they think that they are fighting for their lives—fighting to continue their main-lining of public subsidy. They operate not competitively, as the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson) seems to hope is the case, but, essentially, in monopoly or near-monopoly situations. I thus want to test whether Ministers are up to the fight with those groups.
	We have heard about, or read Committee reports outlining, the thinking in the Department for Transport. Although this might be unfair because the civil servant in question has retired, the former permanent secretary in the Department has said some extraordinary things. He was completely wrong when he appeared before the Public Accounts Committee on 23 January 2006 and said that the real difference between the system of public transport in London, which works, and that in the rest of the country arose from the fact that London had made different choices. That statement demonstrated his inadequate knowledge of the situation. While London uses the stream of money that it receives for its bus system well, authorities in metropolitan areas face all sorts of different issues, not least of which is the threat of council tax capping if their priorities are changed. It was worrying that the permanent secretary did not seem to understand the system. I will not bore the House by going into further detail, but if people want to read further analysis of the situation, it is in the excellent report by the Transport Committee, "Bus services across the UK".
	Even more worryingly, trade weeklies, such as  Bus & Coach Buyer, contain boasts from ex-civil servants that they have more influence, by going to the Department for Transport and talking to their old pals about what they would like for the major companies, than us mere Back Benchers, by tabling early-day motions. I could supply the Ministers with quotes about that. When the Transport Committee quizzed the permanent secretary about that situation, he was complacent—that is the fairest comment that I can make. I hope that Ministers will examine the regular visits made to old chums in the Department by consultants who are paid large amounts by the bus companies. We need a greater understanding of why, over the past 20 years—certainly over the past 10 years of a Labour Government—there has been a steady stream of advice to Ministers that bringing some form of regulation back to the metropolitan areas would be a bad thing, despite the fact that that goes against most of the available evidence.
	The hon. Member for North Shropshire said—this is always in the briefing notes that my hon. Friends and I receive—that we should not go back to the 1985 system. There might be a Labour Member who wants to go back to the situation in 1985, but I cannot honestly name him or her, or point to a relevant reference. I am fairly familiar with the views of the Labour Members in the Chamber. None of them wants that to happen, so the point is irrelevant. We want better services and better use of the public money that goes into public transport.
	Let me say a few words about the financial structure of the industry itself. I was disappointed by the Government's response to the Transport Committee's report on buses. We asked a simple question, although we could perhaps have made its wording more elegant or comprehensive. We wanted the Government to tell us the level of profit at which buses become viable, or, to put it another way, the point at which bus companies start ripping off and exploiting the public sector. We received the response that that question was too difficult to answer—I am paraphrasing because I have not written it down—but that worries me a great deal. We are considering the viability of these companies. They know where the subsidy is going and understand completely how to manipulate the system, whether that is achieved through concessionary fares or by withdrawing from subsidised routes.
	I will try to illustrate what is happening by citing some figures from Manchester. The national figures are very simple and round: the big five companies make about £400 million profit each year, while £2.5 billion of public subsidy goes into them. However, the local situation in Manchester shows significant evidence of monopoly behaviour. The number of supported services has increased by 25 per cent. for no obvious reason. When those services are put out to tender, only one bus company applies, which means that the cost for each mile travelled goes up by more than 30 per cent. above inflation.
	A subsidy of about £100 million goes into the bus system in Greater Manchester, but that gives no control over what happens, except on subsidised routes. What percentage of the bus operators' costs do Ministers think that that represents? I have done some calculations to demonstrate what is happening and to explain why there will be a very tough fight—we are not dealing with nice, chummy bus companies that have the public interest at heart. First Group runs a near-monopoly in my north Manchester constituency. I estimate—I can show the working figures to anyone who is interested—that 47 per cent. of its operating costs are paid for by the taxpayer. The taxpayer has thus paid about 50 per cent. of all costs before a bus gets out of the depot. As soon as First saw that it could get extra subsidy out of the concessionary fare system, it put up its fares by 10 per cent.—it would like a little more public subsidy, thanks very much.
	I suspect that the hon. Member for North Shropshire has more faith in quality partnerships than I have. The prospect of the White Paper, which I welcome, led these rather unpleasant companies to threaten to withdraw their services and leave passengers high and dry if PTAs and councils did not get into partnerships with them at that time. Effectively, they are saying that they will leave the people we care about—who they do not care about—high and dry. That is the real fight that is going on. These people are fighting for their lives, as they are totally dependent on public subsidy.
	Brian Souter, who runs Stagecoach, recently took out adverts in the  Manchester Evening News attacking the passenger transport authority for not providing park-and-drive facilities. If he is such a great entrepreneur, why does he not do it himself? Why does he not buy the land to do it? He has huge profits in Stagecoach, as he is running more or less a monopoly in south Manchester, but that is not his attitude. He has the attitude of a 19th century mill owner, but one who wants some public subsidy as well. There were some pretty unpleasant cotton barons in 19th century Lancashire, but at least they did not ask the local authorities or the Government for money while they were grinding the faces of the workers into the ground. They did so without public subsidy, but not so in Souter's case. He wants to be feather-bedded by public subsidy against real competition.
	At the same time, Souter, along with UK North and GM Buses, which have now gone bankrupt, was prepared to destroy the economy of Manchester's city centre by blocking it up unnecessarily. They knew exactly what they were doing. They were putting pressure on Manchester city council and the passenger transport authority to co-operate with them and give them more cash. In effect, they were saying that they could wreck the city centre by stopping people coming into hospitals or offices. That is their attitude.
	To take a slight international diversion, I would like to provide a glimpse of the future. I am aware of the provenance of that phrase and that it is not usually a happy provenance when people say that they have seen the future. At the expense of the Service Employees International Union, the largest in the US, I went to look at the operations of First Group in America. I went to Jacksonville and Minneapolis-St. Paul and I also talked to drivers in Cincinnati. Together with the Transport and General Workers Union, we were extremely concerned that the practices that First Group was following in the US would soon be seen in this country.
	What I saw was horrifying, although I do not have enough time to provide all the details. First Group, operating as First Student in the US, one of the three biggest bus companies, made me feel ashamed. People who were trying to organise and form trade unions were having the wheels changed on their buses so that they were unsafe in the deepest mid-winter around Minneapolis-St. Paul, where it is often minus 20° or minus 30°, making the roads dangerous. I spoke to many drivers and many people who were trying to organise unions and the response was always the same. First was anti-trade union activity; it acted aggressively and with hostility, showing itself willing to put children's lives at risk. I spoke to the managing director over there and to the people back here. What was happening was completely unacceptable and I was ashamed that a British company was acting like that. I use that example to illustrate the fact that we are not dealing with people who have the public interest at heart.
	I have two further points before finishing. The White Paper is part of a welcome general change in attitude to public transport. The Government are saying that the deregulated system has not worked in part, which I suppose is progress. They say that it has worked in other parts, but I disagree. The Government are going to look further into having quality contracts and a change of governance. They are saying that if people want the cash to improve public transport, they will in some cases have to have road pricing and congestion charging.
	I can tell Ministers that I am not against road pricing in principle. I believe that a thoroughly sound intellectual case can be made for it at the right time, but forcing it into urban areas where it may not be appropriate—it could be a hindrance, barrier and hurdle even though it may be a good thing in its own terms—is quite wrong. I have looked into some of the details of schemes proposed for Greater Manchester—there remains more to be seen—and I do not understand why people in Manchester should pay a higher tax for using the roads there in order to get a bus, tram and possibly a rail system that should be available to them in any case. There may be a case for it, but if we ever get road pricing, I would expect either fuel duty or road tax to be decreased, which cannot happen if an experiment goes on only in one place. I therefore hope that Ministers will look further into that.

Stephen Ladyman: I would like to clarify the position. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we cannot go for national changes in the taxation of road use when we are just talking about pilot schemes. We need to talk in great detail to the local pilot partners about how they want the revenue to be used. We entirely agree that we will not be able to sell a package to motorists in a local area if they think that the money will be spent on some purpose that they may not support. That is very much one of the key issues that the pilot areas have to address and I have no doubt that Greater Manchester will address it, before proceeding with the proposal.

Graham Stringer: I am grateful for those comments, but my main point remains. In our current debate about quality contracts, in previous debates about improving tram systems and in future debates about improving metropolitan rail services, these issues stand on their own. Congestion road pricing is a national issue and I am unconvinced that an experiment that puts the economy and people of Manchester—or Birmingham or anywhere else that tries it—at a disadvantage in comparison with elsewhere will work.
	I respect the Minister's work and I agree with many things that he says on transport, but I must make this point. In a deregulated system or partially deregulated system—this is the key to understanding why deregulation has not worked in metropolitan areas—where car restraint and bus priority measures are in force, it becomes anti-public transport. What the private bus companies do is focus their resources on the radial routes where cars have been moved out of the way, because they make a better return on those routes, and they withdraw services from more marginal areas where many of my constituents and others live.
	Although the proposals to target subsidy have not been widely discussed, I hope that they will work with the proposals on quality contracts. I hope that the Minister will be tough and will realise that he is in for a fight with some very tough multinational companies, which do not want this to happen. They are employing rooms full of lawyers to stop it happening, so it will not happen without a fight. I know that the Minister is tough and up to that sort of fight. I look forward to joining him in making public transport in our metropolitan areas and the rest of England a lot better. "Putting Passengers First" is a great title for a White Paper; I hope that we can make a reality of it.

Paul Rowen: I welcome the comments of the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Graham Stringer) as I, too, welcome the White Paper, which came on the back of the excellent work of the Select Committee on buses and public transport.
	I start by making it clear that Liberal Democrats, although not very happy with deregulation or how it is operating now, do not want to go back to 1985. We agree with the hon. Gentleman about that. One of the first campaigns I got involved in was trying to get GM Buses, as it was at the time, to alter the bus route. I well remember the way in which the public monopolies in existence then were extremely unresponsive to local and necessary changes that would not have cost a huge sum of money. That said, most hon. Members, with the possible exception of Conservative Members, accept that the current policy is not working.
	We have seen a 50 per cent. collapse in bus usage. Fares have gone up 86 per cent. in real terms since deregulation in PTE areas. As the Minister has said, subsidies have risen from £1 billion to £2 billion. At the same time, 15 per cent. of all buses that are stopped by the Government's Vehicle and Operator Services Agency are issued with prohibition notices, despite all the subsidy and all the talk about quality bus contracts. What would people think if something similar applied in the rail industry?
	I agree entirely with the hon. Member for Eccles (Ian Stewart). Back in 2001, my party called for local authorities to be given much more control over quality contracts. The fact that the Minister today, after seven years, can announce only one quality bus contract is clearly testament to the fact that the policy has failed. In fact, a NERA report estimated in August 2006 that, if the current policies were allowed to continue for the next 20 years, there would be a further rise of 20 per cent. in fares and a further drop of 20 per cent. in ridership. Clearly, if congestion, air quality, climate change and all those issues are to be addressed, we must do something now.

Andrew Gwynne: I agree with the hon. Gentleman about air quality, congestion and so on. Will he place on record whether the Liberal Democrats support the Greater Manchester transport innovation fund bid in its entirety?

Paul Rowen: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that, and he will know that, when the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities leaders met two weeks ago, the two leaders from Liberal Democrat-controlled councils in that area insisted on the four tests that were buried in the report being made part of the deal that had to be done before that could be accepted.
	We also said that, if the Greater Manchester passenger transport executive has got its plan, we need to see it within the next two months. Clearly, while we support the policy, we want Manchester to get the investment and we also want a proper debate about what is going into that plan. Hiding it away until after the local elections is not acceptable. We want to see the changes and the investment.
	I want to put a couple of questions to the Under-Secretary about the quality bus contracts, and I hope that she will respond to them. I do not know whether she has seen the article on the front page of last week's  Transport Times. She probably attended the conference, where Jonathan Bracken, a partner at Bircham Dyson Bell, said that nothing suggests that quality contracts were
	"a legal silver bullet to solve our problems".
	There is great concern about the length of time that it will take to conclude the quality contracts on the new framework, and I would be very interested to know, first, whether the Government have done any assessment of that and, secondly, whether they have looked at the process proposed in the White Paper of removing the Department for Transport and involving an appeal process. It seems to us that they are putting in place more hurdles and more stages.

Stephen Ladyman: I wonder why the hon. Gentleman quoted the only article in  Transport Times that contained any lukewarm comments about the Government's proposals, instead of the articles on almost every other page of that edition that said that the Government's proposals could take the industry forward.

Ann Coffey: That is a fair point.

Paul Rowen: It is a fair point —[ Interruption. ] No, no. Like the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley, when I hear one of the people who runs a bus company say that it is wonderful, I am very cynical, having seen the operations of those bus companies at close hand. I have seen the way that they have manipulated our communities, as the hon. Gentleman said, in moving subsidy about. They have moved bus fleets into areas to crush competition. As soon as the competition has gone, they put up prices and bring back the old, clapped-out buses. In my view, that is the quality bus contract scheme, and I wonder why all those bus moguls are suddenly now interested in the scheme. In my view, they see it as yet another way in which they can tie the Government and local council's hands.
	I hope that we will have more of these discussions when the Bill is published. There is a need for regulation. There is a need to give local communities control over transport. There is also a role for urban PTEs and PTAs to take on more of the transport highway functions that currently reside with highway authorities.

Kevan Jones: I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman, and in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Minister, he argued the contrary—that central Government should take more control. Has he changed his mind during the past hour?

Paul Rowen: No, I happen to believe that people must operate a scheme that is right for the purpose, and although I believe that local communities —[ Interruption. ] I was going to come to concessionary bus fares later, but let us look at the results that the current scheme has delivered. I am not criticising the Government's decision to introduce the scheme—in fact, I welcomed it—but in a Statutory Instrument Committee, when we were discussing the introduction of concessionary fares, I warned the then Minister, the hon. Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck), who is not now in her place, about some of the consequences. Those consequences arise because of the way that the revenue support grant system operates: some authorities gained; other authorities, such as Tyne and Wear, lost out.
	The big concern about the scheme is that, as the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley knows, the Greater Manchester passenger transport authority has just lost £3.4 million because the bus operators have played the game and the patronage has gone up, so they have put up the bus fare, and they are now claiming a greater proportion of the fare. That has cost Greater Manchester council £3.4 million this year, and concessionary bus fares for others have gone up from 50p to 70p. Therefore, I want the system to be regulated.
	I want a smart card to be introduced that operates nationally, so that it does not matter in which authority it is used and so that accurate data can be collected. I want a system that does not allow bus operators to hold local authorities to ransom because so many people have gone on the bus in the past. If people are negotiating a contract, they should agree what they will spend in the coming 12 months.
	A standard fare, very much as the Mayor of London has introduced for concessionary bus travel, will allow local authorities to take on the big bus operators. Otherwise, we have already seen what is happening: they are milking the system. There is a need for a national framework, not necessarily a totally national scheme, that has certain parameters that allows us to develop a truly national scheme. If that is good enough for the Scots or the Welsh, why is it not good enough for England?
	To return to my main point, I believe that there is a need for regulation. I welcome the introduction of the statutory partnership and the removal of the public interest test that was used previously.
	I also welcome the increased role of traffic commissioners, although my party would like that role to be extended. Earlier, the Office of Fair Trading was mentioned, but it has lamentably failed to do anything to regulate fares and competition for buses; in fact, it has gone completely the other way. We would like the OFT's powers to be transferred to the traffic commissioners, but with an exemption, so that common fare schemes could be introduced, and so that there could be some control over prices. We would like the traffic commissioners to play a role in helping to control and regulate bus timetables and fares. That is the system under which the railways operated, before the Department for Transport decided to take all the powers back for itself. The only way forward is to give traffic commissioners that role, and to ensure free competition for buses; that is what is needed.
	We need a commitment from the Government that road-user charging will not be used as a Revenue-funder, but will instead bring about greater investment. We have a long way to go in the next few months to make sure that changes are made, but we have finally made a start. We want statutory quality partnerships, and we want local authorities and passenger transport executives to have a say in setting them up. We want an enhanced role for traffic commissioners, and we want a national framework for concessionary fares. If we get all that, we can move forward and begin to experience benefits. It has taken the Government 10 years to reach this stage; the bus is late, but it has arrived at last.

Gwyneth Dunwoody: I have a warm feeling of nostalgia, because I remember sitting through the proceedings on the Transport Bill in 1985 and watching the Conservative party explaining their views quite plainly. In their view, the public subsidy for buses was not only very large but indefensible. It could not be explained, and should be removed as far away as possible. All that we needed was to return to the high uplands of open competition, and all would be well. If I may say so without being unduly harsh to the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson), who is no longer in the Chamber, it was delightful to hear him struggling hard not to make plain the position that Conservatives still hold. It is comforting to know that some things never change.

Julian Brazier: May I tell the hon. Lady, who chairs the Select Committee on Transport, that when we come to my winding-up speech, she will hear about one of the most interesting schemes in bus development, which is being introduced by the largest Conservative authority and rural county?

Gwyneth Dunwoody: I am delighted to hear that, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman's speech will not undermine his position on the Front Bench; if he says something new, strong and policy-led, it will be such a departure that his position in the shadow transport team will not last long.
	The Government should take a clear look at what is happening in the bus system. It is true that large sums of money are being spent, including on the concessionary fares scheme, which is a delight. It has opened up all sorts of vistas, and it is a real improvement in the quality of life for many people in my constituency. It is wholly to be applauded. Also, amounts are being spent on ensuring that services are provided by an ever smaller number of private companies. In his estimable speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley (Graham Stringer) made it plain that five major companies are responsible for 90 per cent. of the bus services, and they not only wantonly dictate terms and conditions, but behave in a manner that cannot be defended. It is clear that many local authorities are faced with a series of faits accomplis, as companies simply remove services, without any justification, and then tell county councils or PTEs, "Fine; if you want that service to run, replace it with a subsidised service, and we will accept the extra money with thanks."
	If we are to consider doing more than stopping the decline of bus travel, and are instead to consider expanding bus travel, as the Government are doing under many of their schemes, we need to examine the behaviour of those who provide the services and those who accept the public subsidies, and they inevitably do not compete with one another. It is nonsense to say that the bus companies in this country compete, because the reality is very different. I believe that the Government are sincere in wanting not only to improve the situation in the bus industry but ensure that ever more people use buses, with all the environmental advantages that that would bring. It is no accident that large numbers of Labour Members want to debate the subject today, but that Conservative Members think that the matter is of no interest. That demonstrates clearly the difference between the two parties.
	On the Government's response to the Select Committee's inquiry, the Committee looked into bus services across the United Kingdom because we were so concerned about what is happening, given not only the concessionary fares regime but all the recent changes that have come about. The Government said in their answer to the Committee that they
	"would not want to see local authorities introducing a Quality Contracts scheme for the whole of an urban area at the same time under one contract".
	Why not? What is the advantage of letting contracts for smaller parts of the network? There is no justification for doing so. Part of the reason for introducing a quality contract is so that local authorities and passenger transport authorities can create a co-ordinated network in their area, and that is where the real benefit lies. To have several contracts within an area would complicate matters, raise costs and fail to ensure the co-ordination that the contracts are designed to provide.

Kevan Jones: Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government have taken that attitude possibly because, in the dark recesses of the Department for Transport, the idea of competition has not completely gone out of the window?

Gwyneth Dunwoody: I am convinced that there is a rather endearing commitment to the idea that bus companies somehow compete. The reality is that they do nothing of the kind. They take good care to make sure that if there is any question of competition, they deal with the matter any way that they can.
	On that theme, may I ask the Minister the question to which I did not get an answer earlier? If PTAs are legally challenged by bus companies in the event of a quality contract being introduced, will the Department indemnify them from legal action? It is unacceptable that bus companies should, in effect, threaten locally elected authorities and say to them, "If you persist, even though what your are doing is in the interests of your constituents and the general public, we will challenge you in the courts." I regard that as straightforward blackmail, and I should like to know whether the Government intend to make it clear that they will neither accept that nor allow local authorities or PTAs to cope with the matter on their own.

Clive Betts: Does my hon. Friend agree that that is an extremely important issue? To a PTE, the cost of a legal case in the courts would be a significant part of its budget, whereas to the bus companies, compared with the amount of profit that they could lose if a quality contract was brought in, the cost of a legal case would be insignificant, and they would always have a vested interest in proceeding with such a case.

Gwyneth Dunwoody: That is an essential difference, and one that we should be aware of. It is ratepayers who will have to foot the bill, and they who will suffer.
	The Committee considered that traffic commissioners were an important part of the traffic system and should be given rather more powers and more resources. During the debate some Members have expressed worries about the role of the traffic commissioners if they were allowed to adjudicate on new schemes, but they are an independent service and they have responsibilities. Were they given greater powers, they would be able to extend what they do at present—make a valiant attempt, not always fully supported, to bring the bus companies into some kind of order and to provide a high quality service. Not only should they have more resources, but they should be consulted on extended powers.
	We believe that the Government were wrong when they said that it was not intended that traffic commissioners would enforce any quality contract schemes, and that that would be the role of the contracting local authority. There is no justification for that. Independent enforcement of quality contracts, if operators are persuaded to join them, should be the responsibility not of the local authority that will be a party to the contract, but of an independent force such as traffic commissioners, who can not only be trusted, but can demonstrate why they reach particular conclusions.
	The Government rejected our suggestion that they should undertake a study of operators' excess profits, on the grounds that
	"a general statement about the appropriate profit level would not be tenable."
	That is nonsense. The Government already do that in other fields, and I can give chapter and verse. There is absolutely no justification for allowing the five very powerful companies to escape proper surveillance.
	The Government said that the amount that local authorities have to spend on subsidising routes was not acceptable. They pointed out that funding had increased under the Government. We agreed that that was good, but it is not the real point. Local authorities are having to make greater and greater subsidies because of the behaviour of the operators in surrendering the less profitable routes and rebidding for the same subsidised service.
	Many hon. Members want to speak and they will undoubtedly lay out in considerable detail what is good and bad about the systems in their areas. I make a more general point to my hon. Friend the Minister. There is no great sophistication or glamour about the bus industry. It does not have those dearly loved fans who follow railway engines round the country, take their pictures and keep them carefully in books, but it can make a difference to the lives of women in particular, in a way that no other service can do. It is the difference, especially in rural areas, between being able to get to the doctor and to the local town to get the shopping done—between having any kind of social contact and being totally isolated. Yet for some reason the bus industry is regarded, perhaps not only by the Conservative party, as a service that has constantly to be justified because it is costing the ratepayers money.
	Nobody demands better value for money than I or my Committee do, but before we remove from the powers of the local authorities the right to control the way that money is spent on behalf of the ratepayer and taxpayer, we should think very carefully indeed. We are already committed to providing good services. We are already committed to a most imaginative scheme that has made an enormous difference to many pensioners.
	Let us not, for other reasons, undermine all the good things that have been done by allowing a small group of enormously greedy bus operators to dictate exactly what they want to do without any concern for the common good or the common purpose. I know that my hon. Friend the Minister will never allow that, but I want an undertaking from her that neither will the silly men whom she sometimes has to deal with.

Lee Scott: I wish to speak as a London Member of Parliament who uses public transport on a regular basis. In fact, this morning I was very grateful for public transport, because without it I would not be here. I walked through the snow to the station, having been unable to use the No. 150 bus as I usually would, and the underground got me here, even if it was in conditions that we would not allow animals to travel in.
	I want to speak in a way that is not party political.

Kevan Jones: Oh dear.

Lee Scott: I apologise to the hon. Gentleman in advance.
	I want to talk about some ideas that I have come up with. I apologise to my Front-Bench colleagues for not sharing those ideas with them beforehand, but as I am on the Back Benches and will probably be staying here, I feel latitude in being able to do that.
	One of the main reasons why people in my constituency do not wish to travel on buses is the safety factor. Recently, bus drivers in my area have refused to travel along certain routes because of antisocial behaviour by young people. We heard earlier about proposals made by a group in the London assembly. As that is a devolved assembly, I do not intend to give it advice on what it should or should not do, but it relates to the problem. When the Mayor introduced concessions for young people, he promised that there would be extra British Transport police on buses where there were problems and that anyone who abused the system would be stopped from using those buses. That has not happened. Constituents, particularly the elderly, regularly contact me to say that they are scared to travel, particularly late at night or in the winter when it gets dark early, because they do not feel safe due to the vandalism and irresponsibility of people who abuse the system. I recognise that the vast majority of young people do not abuse the system, but it is always the minority who spoil it for the majority. If such schemes are to be rolled out elsewhere, I ask the Minister to consider extra British Transport police coverage to protect people.

Graham Stringer: The hon. Gentleman served on the Transport Committee when we produced the buses report and will remember that when we investigated safety on buses one of our concerns was that the operator should take some responsibility for the security of passengers. Does he agree, and can he tell the House what measures bus operators in his area are taking to improve passenger security?

Lee Scott: I thank the hon. Gentleman and agree with his comments.
	Recently, when the police have tried to bring prosecutions they were told that the closed-circuit TV on the buses was not functioning because it had no film and therefore could not be used in evidence. Companies must be made to have that in motion all the time so that it can be used and prosecutions brought. The onus for that is on the bus companies. I have said that locally and will continue to do so. Equally, however, there needs to be British Transport police back-up.
	Having mentioned my journey to the House this morning, I should like to refer to an incident that happened on the way, by which point I was on the tube. I recognise that that is not the subject of the debate, but it still has relevance. Two gentlemen decided to try to knock seven bells out of each other because one of them could not get off the train. We tried to separate them and were successful, and one of them, in good east end terms, legged it and got away. There was no one there to try to stop the fight. No staff were available. If we are to encourage greater use of public transport, it can be done only with better policing.
	I said at the beginning of my speech that I would not be party political. I commend the Mayor of London for the fact that we have more buses. However, we need to go further. People in parts of my constituency and the nearby area cannot access the buses because they do not run to the places that are slightly further outside the town centre and the shopping areas. They cannot get into those areas to use facilities such as libraries and swimming pools.
	There should be partnerships, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson) said. Partnerships work in some parts of the country and they should be extended further, with pilots to ascertain how we can get smaller hopper buses to run to the main services that access the main hubs. If that is done, we will have a first class bus service, which I support.
	My hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire referred to disabled people who use buses. There is 100 per cent. coverage in London. Again, I congratulate the Mayor and Transport for London on that. However, many users tell me that they cannot access facilities because some of the staff are not trained to help them. I ask for training to be put in place and rolled out throughout the country so that disabled people who cannot currently access services can do so. I have heard reports of people missing interviews and appointments and being unable to go shopping because buses do not offer the necessary facilities.
	When I was a child—my memory serves me well; that was a long time ago—I got the No.148 bus from the Green Man roundabout to Ilford every day to go to school. Was I ever told off for misbehaving on the bus? I was. In those days, you got a clip round the ear and you did not do it again. I got the clip and I did not do it again. However, I used the services all the time. I want a first-class service for the people of our country. I commend the work of our Committee and its Chairman and I shall continue to support it in every way I can.

George Howarth: The hon. Member for Ilford, North (Mr. Scott) made his initial point about the need for security on buses and other forms of public transport well. It applies equally to other parts of the country.
	The hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson) repeatedly made the point that London is unique. In many respects, it is. It is a capital city with a larger population than anywhere else in the country and it has some unique characteristics. However, there are similarities between London and other city regions that we should not overlook. We should not be seduced from the view that things that happen in London would be equally appropriate in other city regions.
	My city region of Merseyside is a case in point. Indeed, my constituency makes the point well. City regions are not homogenous areas. They are not entirely urban—they have rural parts. In my constituency, Kirkby, Stockbridge village and North Huyton are classically urban areas, mainly consisting of estates and town centres. My hon. Friend the Minister, who opened the debate for the Government, knows the area well—indeed, he was brought up there. Aintree and Maghull are suburban areas, Knowsley village and Lydiate are semi-rural, and Sefton village and Ince Blundell are rural. So, although it is a city region, it has many different areas, even within one constituency.

Julian Brazier: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way so early in his speech. Like a number of others, he has attacked my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson) for suggesting that the London experience cannot easily be replicated. In fact, the Government's own response to the Select Committee report states:
	"The Government agrees that it is not clear that the London experience can be replicated wholesale in other metropolitan areas. London is unique on many counts and it is not easy to isolate the reasons for their success on increasing bus patronage."

George Howarth: I have read those words as well. It might have escaped the hon. Gentleman's attention that I am making a speech from the Back Benches rather than from the Front Bench. Although I shall express my support for some of the Government's proposals in a moment, I hope that he will allow me to make my speech in my own way, using my own words.
	As I was saying, there is a mixture of areas even within a single city region, and my constituency illustrates that point well. One thing that all those areas have in common, whether they are urban, rural, semi-rural or suburban, is that they all have problems with bus services. Moreover, the problems are not that different from one area to another. We sometimes make too much of the differences between areas, when, in my experience, the problems are more common to most of them than we acknowledge. With £2 billion of subsidy going into the system, we should not have so many problems. That point was well made by my hon. Friends the Members for Manchester, Blackley (Graham Stringer) and for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) in relation to difficulties with certain bus companies, and I shall not repeat those arguments.
	Successful city regions need many things but, above all, they need an efficient and reliable transport system, and buses are an essential part of that mix. May I also say, as I never miss an opportunity to raise the subject in the House, that the people of Merseyside would be really pleased if we could have a light rail system? The Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, South (Mr. Harris), who is responsible for these matters, is in discussion with us to see whether we can revive the Merseytram Line 1, and I hope that we shall be able to do so. Every city region needs a mix of different kinds of transport.
	The transport system in my constituency, particularly the bus system, is not as good as it should be. That applies to urban and rural areas alike—the same problems exist throughout the area. The bus companies are able to change the timetables and the frequency of the services almost without interference. They certainly do so without any consultation and often without giving any proper notice. It is common for a bus service to be changed and for no one to know anything about it until after it has happened. All too often, people do not know about the change until their bus does not turn up at the expected time. Some services have been entirely withdrawn, which has left places such as Melling in my constituency totally isolated. Other services have stopped running in the evenings. This has happened in some parts of Kirkby, which is an urban area, and in Knowsley village, which is semi-rural. After a certain time in the evening there are either no buses at all, or a very limited service.
	So, there are problems. I do not say that in order to criticise the Government. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister will accept that that is the reality of the situation. I welcome the consultation document "Putting Passengers First". As others have said, it is a well-named document: putting passengers first ought to be our objective. The document provides a reasonable and reasoned approach to the problems that have been described in the debate today.
	I would, however, like to raise some concerns, and I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will be able to address them when she winds up the debate. I should say, Mr. Deputy Speaker, by way of an apology, that owing to the difficulties of travelling on the west coast main line today, I might not be able to stay here long enough to hear my hon. Friend's wind-up speech. However, I shall read it avidly on the intranet tomorrow.
	I am glad that quality contracts, which have been mentioned a number of times, form part of the Government's mixed approach, but I hope that my hon. Friend will ensure that the administrative tests are not so onerous as to put off local authorities— indeed, no more onerous than the tests that already exist. It is important to be flexible and allow PTAs to be imaginative about how they enter into partnerships.
	As we have heard, the costs of concessionary travel are causing concern, but there is also concern about the potential for fraud. I believe that smart cards will help to deal with that. Although municipal bus services were not always perfect, I think that in an ideal world they would be the best option, but it is probably impossible to get to where we would like to be from a standing start. However, I have a suggestion.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich will be familiar with Merseyrail Electrics. It has a 25-year contract with Merseytravel allowing it to provide what is known as a publicly specified and privately operated electric rail service. The long contract period gives time for any necessary improvements to be measured and introduced over time. The contract also gives the passenger transport authority a good deal of control. According to all the national measurements that have been taken, the service is efficient and reliable. I think that that model could prove very successful if applied to buses, and I hope my hon. Friend will consider it. Certainly my constituents who use the Northern line appreciate the service.
	Before I entered the House, I spent 14 years as a member of a local authority, Knowsley council, and of its predecessor, Huyton urban district council. I continue to believe strongly that the more control we give to local authorities, the more likely they are to administer services in a way that meets local needs. I was pleased to note from his speech that my hon. Friend the Minister was taken with that idea.
	Merseytravel, my local PTA, is a very good authority. Its chair, Councillor Mark Dowd, is a great political leader and a great advocate for public transport for Merseyside, and for the whole country in respect of some of the bodies on which he serves. Its chief executive, Neil Scales—I think that his full title is chief executive and director general—is well regarded by the Department for Transport, in transport circles and by those of us who regularly deal with Merseytravel. People like that represent the future of public transport, and people like that are the right people to deal with bus services. I hope that through the measures in the consultation document, we can transfer more power and control to such people because I trust them to deal with bus services—and although I trust my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, I am not entirely convinced that I trust her Department in its entirety instead of a local authority.

Nick Brown: It is a rare pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth) in debate, as it is unusual for a Labour Member to speak immediately after another Labour Member. It is worth pausing to reflect on why that has happened. In fairness to the Conservative party, it is being consistent. Conservatives do not like bus travel, they are not wedded to public transport and they have not turned up for this debate. They are at least being consistent in not being present. However, the hon. Member for Rochdale (Paul Rowen) is the only Liberal Democrat who has attended this debate. When I think of all the "Fib Dem" "Focus" leaflets that have been shoved through my letter box—I am sure other Members have had the same experience—saying how much they care about where the bus stop is, the frequency of the bus service, how wrong it is that somebody else, either the Labour Government or the Labour-controlled passenger transport authority, has not done this, that or the other, I would have thought that their parliamentary representatives might have found time to have attended the debate.

Tobias Ellwood: I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman is not surprised that a Member rises to respond to that comment. He is right that the debate is on an important issue, but let us look at the timetable for it. On what day is the debate taking place? This is the last day before recess and we are having a discussion about buses. Why was the subject of the debate not expanded? Does the right hon. Gentleman not agree that we should have a wider debate—one that is not only on buses, but on transport? If that were the case, we would find that not only Opposition Members but Labour Members would be more inclined to join in the debate.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I think that we ought to debate the matter that we are in the Chamber to debate.

Nick Brown: I fully accept that, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I wish to observe that the conditions that pertain to today's debate pertain for all Members equally. It is not easier for Labour Members to get to the House than Conservative Members—or easier even than Liberal Democrats. However, I shall follow your guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and return to the subject of buses.
	The case for public bus transport has never been stronger. The arguments for it have been well rehearsed in the House. Bus transport is liberating for those who do not have access to other means of transportation. It is socially inclusive for those on low incomes, including pensioners and those who do not receive a wage. The economic case for bus transportation in broadening the range of jobs that are available to people has an important part to play in the Government's "making work pay" strategy. There is, and always has been, a strong case for bus transportation in terms of the impact that it has on relieving traffic congestion. Perhaps the most important argument in favour of bus transportation is the environmental case; a bus journey produces far less carbon dioxide per person than individual car travel for the same journey.
	I want to pay tribute and give due credit to individual Government Departments for their recognition of the role of bus transportation in achieving their departmental objectives. For example, the Department for Work and Pensions has provided financial support for bus transportation defined specifically to link rural communities with larger neighbouring labour markets. Through its agencies, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and its predecessor, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, have supported rural bus schemes, including minibus schemes, to mitigate the isolation of those in rural communities who do not have access to their own transport. Some of those schemes have been highly imaginative, taking careful account of people's preferred journey patterns. The Chancellor has provided funding for concessionary bus travel for older and disabled people in his last two Budget statements, and the latest proposal from the Department for Transport is to take forward the quality contract idea in the Transport Act 2000, which I think has so far found only one taker. So if there is merit in the idea—I think that there is—it needs revisiting.
	Having said all that, the question that the House ought to be considering is why the use of buses outside London has been in sharp decline since bus deregulation in the 1980s. Bus use in Tyne and Wear has declined by 48 per cent. in the past 20 years, and part of the explanation might be found in the level of expenditure on transport. Public spending on transport in London stands at £631 per head. The equivalent figure for the four English regions of the north-east, Yorkshire and Humberside, the north-west and the west midlands is £239 per head. That is a substantial difference. Deregulation of the bus industry outside London has not brought the benefits claimed for it, and it seems that the application of competition policy in this area has turned out to be more of a hindrance than a help.
	With declining passenger numbers, bus companies are slow in investing and short-termist in their decision making, and there has been little innovation from the private sector. Now that the private sector bus market has settled down following initial deregulation, there has been a marked tendency toward the establishment of effective private sector monopolies area by area. That is exacerbated by the fact that the cost of entry into the market for new competition is high, so it is rarely attempted. Whatever this is, it is not competition policy. Bus companies are also not slow in coming forward to demand public subsidies for every social element of the service that they provide—a point that my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley (Graham Stringer) made very effectively. The most obvious example is concessionary travel. Bus companies seek to reclaim from public authorities the full cost of pensioners' and older people's travel. If a real private market were operating, surely all bus companies would introduce concessionary travel arrangements of their own. However, because the state is paying, those private companies want to charge full fare.

Paul Rowen: I am pleased that the right hon. Gentleman has moved on to concessionary fares. What is his view of the Government's revenue support grant settlement for Tyne and Wear, which resulted in massive cuts in bus services and an increase in concessionary fares? Does he think that the Government got it right?

Nick Brown: It will come as no surprise whatsoever to the hon. Gentleman to learn that I will have quite a lot to say about that issue later. Indeed, I have asked questions of the Minister about it, met various Ministers to discuss it, had an Adjournment debate on it and introduced a ten-minute Bill in an attempt to remedy the problem. So it is not as if I have been silent on the matter, and nor will I be silent this time. I should add one cautionary note, however. The difficult situation in which Tyne and Wear finds itself is not the responsibility of the Ministers opening and responding to today's debate. Indeed, the previous Secretary of State for Transport went out of his way to be as helpful as he could to Tyne and Wear; the blame lies elsewhere.

Julian Brazier: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way a second time. On his substantive point, he has made an intricate, detailed and effective attack on the way in which the subsidy is being applied. Surely that bears out the point made earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson), who said that one does not have to disagree with the level of subsidy in order to argue that it is none the less being extremely ineffectively applied.

Nick Brown: The hon. Gentleman—I hope that I do not do him any harm in saying this—is absolutely right. An appropriate sum of money was allocated to the policy; it is the way in which it has been distributed to individual authorities that has given rise to the problem. Some authorities were given too much money and were reluctant to give it back. That is understandable, but the area that I represent was not given enough money. It says that it needs more, and it does, as I shall point out.
	I suspect that the hon. Gentleman will also agree with me about the dangers before privatisation. Unresponsive, complacent, inflexible and inefficient public monopolies are no more acceptable than their under-funded private sector equivalents. Many of my hon. Friends have said that they do not want to go back to the situation of the early 1980s. I endorse that sentiment and I shall propose a better way forward.
	The issue is important for the whole country, and especially for English conurbations outside London. It is especially important to the community in Tyne and Wear that I represent, partly because car ownership is substantially lower than the national average and partly because the usage of public transport is substantially higher than the national average. It is those facts that, as well as underpinning the importance of public transport, have got us into the budgetary difficulty that the PTA, Nexus, faces. For those who do not know the area, Nexus covers the five metropolitan district authorities in Tyne and Wear. The funding arrangements for the Government-inspired concessionary travel scheme have left the authority with a shortfall of £5.4 million.
	I have raised the issue in an Adjournment debate and in a ten-minute Bill. The Tyne and Wear MPs have had meetings with Ministers and even with the Prime Minister to try to resolve the issue, but it remains unresolved. It is completely unacceptable that the injustice has remained unresolved for 18 months.

Paul Rowen: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Nick Brown: No, I have made my point about unfairness, and other hon. Members, at least on this side of the House, wish to speak in the debate. I do not want to use up their time.
	Nexus has tried to deal with the problem by drawing down its reserves to bridge the funding gap. That might be a reasonable short-term strategy, but it can only do it once. The reserves cannot be drawn down again, so some other means will have to be found to meet the budget shortfall. That inevitably means cuts in services and the withdrawal of other concessions that do not have the statutory underpinning of the arrangements for pensioners and persons with disabilities. That is desperately unfair—and even more so because the pressure to cut other arrangements is not being put on other passenger transport authorities. In any event, such pressure is contrary to the public interest.
	I wish to conclude my short contribution to today's debate by suggesting a way forward. The debate about city regions offers in its analysis some very important points on economic development and public transport, although it is unwise to draw more general conclusions about political structures from it. What is needed is a combination of the ideas proposed by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport for taking forward the quality contract proposals, which have much merit, combined with an empowering of passenger transport authorities.
	I took great heart from the Minister's comments on the issue. I shall await the details of the proposals, but it sounds as if they are on the right lines. I strongly believe that passenger transport authorities should be able to make strategic alliances across their existing boundaries with neighbouring communities. They should be led, as they are now, by elected local representatives. However, I am not taken with the idea that they should comprise the leaders of the district authorities in the area. Council leaders are very busy people: a mixture of other councillors, in proportion to party representation in the area, would be able to specialise in transport matters, and make that their main contribution to local public service.
	The PTAs need to have the power to assert specific bus routes. They do not have it at present, but instead must allow routes to be chosen by the bus companies. They should be able to impose bus-only lanes and make arrangements with the police for their enforcement. They should be able to assert the frequency of service on specific routes, and they need to be adequately funded so that they can support innovative public transport projects.
	A strong case can be made for funding short or environmentally friendly journeys, such as school bus journeys in urban areas that might replace the car trips that parents make when taking their children to school. That idea has much to commend it on environmental and congestion-reduction grounds, but the obvious objection is that parents pay for their journeys by car to school, whereas the public purse would end up paying for the bus. Nevertheless, the time has come for such ideas, and the PTAs should be able to innovate in that way.
	If bus travel is to make the contribution that many Ministers want it to make, we have to believe in it and create enthusiastic public authorities to champion it. The new proposals from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport will have their greatest impact if local PTAs are empowered to act as strong advocates for them.

Chris Mole: I am honoured to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East and Wallsend (Mr. Brown), who remarked on the sequence of speakers in the debate and made many of the points that I want to make about the importance of buses in public transport.
	To whom are bus services important? My hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) mentioned the large number of female bus users, but many older people use them too. We are moving from the perception that to be pro-bus is to be anti-car, and a consensus is forming about the need to deal with climate change and reduce carbon dioxide. To that end, we need coherence and consistency in the public transport initiatives adopted by all parties, at both national and local levels.
	Buses play a crucial role in the provision of quality choices for modal shifting. I was a county council leader between 1993 and 2001, and introduced various public transport initiatives. A number of park-and-ride schemes were deployed around Ipswich, and it was interesting to hear what people said about buses when they had not been on one for years. They were pleased to see innovations such as double glazing, which showed that their resistance to public omnibuses was based on entirely outdated perceptions about what it was like to use them regularly.
	If this debate had been held last month, I might have been tempted to say that Ipswich could provide some glimpses into the future of bus services. Buses provide an alternative to private car use on some journeys, and they are very useful for getting people to work or to the shops. Indeed, as the leader of the county council I used to look forward to receiving a letter from someone who wrote annually when the county council re-approved a rural bus route subsidy, saying, "Thank you very much for doing this again. It means that I can continue in my employment for another 12 months."
	If this debate had been last month I would have liked to invite hon. Members to come to Ipswich to see a glimpse of the future. I would never have thought to claim that we were in any way leading the pack on every possible initiative. Obviously, when we hear of the achievements in London, we recognise that some of the best practice is already in our capital. I would have said that over the years, particularly when Suffolk county council had a Labour leadership, we had a Labour borough council and a Labour Government, bus services were beginning to motor. We saw the introduction of a guided bus way, giving buses priority in avoiding congestion on one of our busiest radial routes out of town. We had bus priority and gating measures at traffic lights that, unfortunately, were opposed by local Conservatives at every turn. Since 2004 when they took over leadership of Ipswich borough council they have messed about with bus lane priorities and bus gating measures annually. That is hugely regrettable given the evident advantage that that gave to buses in reducing journey times and increasing reliability and adherence to timetables.
	To those infrastructure measures introduced by the local authority, I would add real time passenger information. On the few routes into which we have managed to tiptoe with RTPI, the public have shown an appetite for it. One route used a satellite space technology, so bus users could monitor buses over the internet. That was developed in co-operation with local business. I should have liked to see that develop into a local texting-based bus alerting system.
	Investment in frequency is critical in passenger psychology. Services should be frequent and reliable. Some of the methods around RTPI are an attempt to bolster passenger confidence that when they go to the bus stop, the bus will turn up. The more frequent the service, the more confident are passengers that if they turn up, the service will be along shortly and if they have just missed the bus, they will not have to wait too long for the next. That is critical to ensuring that services are financially viable and have a high level of ridership. Tinkering with service frequencies is a dangerous game.
	Park-and-ride schemes have been an enormously successful element of the central Ipswich transport system. The first two schemes were introduced without Government subsidy and the third was supported through local transport plan arrangements. Their success is measured by a monthly increase in passenger usage of between 2 and 3 per cent., and they are the mainstay of the increase in bus ridership to and from Ipswich. The schemes are operated under parking regulations rather than the bus service regime, but they have taken 1.5 million car journeys off the roads in Ipswich over the past few years.
	Another feature of a sustainable future will be a co-operative—partnership—approach between local authorities and bus companies to meet the needs of new developments. Ravenswood in Ipswich is a major development on a former airfield, where we secured support from the developers for the introduction of an up-front bus route. The service is one of the fastest growing in the town in terms of usage. People moving into the development have had the option of quality public transport from day one, so they have not got into the habit of using cars.
	That example shows that we have a forward-looking bus company. There have been many claims of uniqueness in this debate, but Ipswich is the only non-metropolitan district that still has a corporately owned bus company. Ipswich borough council is the sole shareholder in Ipswich Buses and has provided proactive partnership in the initiatives that I have described.
	Last month, I was pleased to be invited by Ipswich Buses to the launch of its new fleet of six Scania buses for service 13, which shows the company's forward thinking on how best to meet the needs of passengers. For me, the most pleasant surprise was that the new buses had leather seating. It had been fitted in the confidence that if the quality of the environment was high, people would respect the buses and they would be less subject to damage. However, there are also eight CCTV cameras on every bus, which are linked to the borough's safety system.
	Some Members asked about security on buses. Bus companies are frequently subject to ill-founded claims for damages that people say were sustained on buses, in the hope of reaching an out-of-court settlement because the company will not want the cost of an expensive court hearing. There is some early evidence from Ipswich Buses that, when people discover that what has happened on every bus journey has been recorded, quite often some of those unfounded claims for compensation are withdrawn and the bus company saves the expense that it might otherwise have been put to.
	I was pleased that a bus company that is as forward looking as Ipswich Buses was introducing six excellent new buses on one of its services and that those buses were going to be fully accessible and compatible with the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee—DPTAC—standard, as is true of 100 per cent. of the existing fleet. Had we had this debate last month, I might have told Members that they should come to Ipswich for a glimpse of the future.
	The public have a simple perspective. It is all well and fine to talk about the regulatory regimes, but the public's perspective is clear. If a service is withdrawn by a private operator or the frequency of buses is reduced, they think that the local authority is responsible. They think that services should be frequent, that buses should be clean and smart, and that fares should be reasonable. The public do not think that there should be the absurd complexities associated with through-ticketing. I urge my hon. Friends on the Front Bench to look closely at what they can do to work with their colleagues in the Department of Trade and Industry to look at the application of competition law to through-ticketing. It does appear to create some nonsenses that I know we would have overcome in Ipswich.
	Although we would certainly have overcome those difficulties last month, this month is a different story. Not a week after I was pleased to be involved in the launch of the six new buses, I discovered that the shareholder—the now Conservative and Liberal Democrat-run Ipswich borough council—had told the bus company directors that it wanted to withdraw £975,000 of share dividends and that it required a dividend of £162,000 every year until 2009, when it was going to introduce a £500,000 annual rental on the depot.
	That will have a huge impact on services. The proposals are enormously regrettable and there has been much hostile reaction from my constituents. They will mean that—whereas we were able to launch six new vehicles last month—there will be no investment in new vehicles for the period of the plan. They will mean the withdrawal of the present day-rover ticket, which has been a boon to many, and a reduction in evening and Sunday services on many routes. Buses on routes 5, 7, 11 and 15 would be reduced by the Tory and Liberal council from four per hour to three per hour. Buses on the No. 2 route would go from half hourly to hourly, on the No. 12 route from three per hour to two per day, and on the No. 16 route from three per hour to two per hour. The No. 14 service would be cut entirely.
	I said earlier that the public have a very simple view of these things. They expect a good standard of frequency. There is a huge danger that the proposal made by the Conservative and Liberal-controlled council will lead to some of the four routes with reduced frequencies that I identified becoming less patronised because people will be less confident that if they turn up at a bus stop, they will be able to get a bus and go. There is a risk that profitability will thus decrease and that the routes will become subject to more financial scrutiny.
	I would have liked to have been able to say that if hon. Members came to Ipswich, they might have a glimpse of an aspect of the future of bus services. However, despite the fine words about the environment of the Conservatives and Liberals who run our council, they plan to do something else. It is time to put an end to that, so I hope that the good people of Ipswich will put every pressure on Ipswich borough council to reverse the proposal because it would be enormously damaging to all people who use buses for leisure, to get to work and in every aspect of their daily lives.

Ian Stewart: I have spoken in and secured several debates on buses in recent years because buses are one of my constituents' highest priorities. We need to look at transport in a new light: we need to see it in relation to health, education, employment and the environment, and look at it in an integrated way across all those public interests.
	I welcome the publication of "Putting Passengers First". As one of my constituents, Mrs. Connor, wrote:
	"it is now some time since the meeting at Swinton Town Hall was held to discuss the problems caused by the cancellation of local bus services. I am hoping that there will soon be some good news."
	My constituents, like others, hold local politicians and the transport authorities responsible when their bus disappears, but we know that that is not the case. We have a problem that all Governments face: how do we reconcile competition with co-operation, or, as I put it, how do we achieve "co-opetition"? That might not be achievable, but we must try to work towards it. As we do so, we need to try to achieve a negotiated partnership-approach settlement. However, achieving that will depend on the balance of power. I think that that lies too much with the bus operators, rather than with local government and local transport authorities. I hope that the forthcoming Bill will go some way towards redressing that balance so that effective action can be taken in the interests of the public.
	As we all know, good, reliable, affordable and safe bus services are vital for social inclusion, economic renewal, the reduction of congestion and the improvement of our environment. Bus services are now predominantly provided by five large companies. We have heard that buses account for 31 per cent. of the turnover of the big five, but for 47 per cent. of their profits. Taxpayer subsidy to the industry continues to rise; in 2004-05, it was estimated at £1.86 billion. We all want value for money, and passengers expect their elected representatives, be they MPs or councillors, to deliver the services that they want and need. Like other Greater Manchester Members, I am proud of the Greater Manchester passenger transport authority. I know that PTAs are working hard to deliver high-quality services for local people.
	With 20 years' experience of deregulation, we can say with some certainty that voluntary co-operation does not work and that further initiatives are needed. The quality contracts for which the Transport Act 2000 provided have not materialised, as some of us predicted. The Passenger Transport Executive Group has proposed that only minor changes to the 2000 Act are needed to solve our present difficulties. Local authority franchises or quality contracts can be introduced only if it can be demonstrated to be the only practicable way to achieve a local bus strategy. That is too high a hurdle. The PTEG says that the practicable test should be removed, leaving the existing tests of economy, efficiency and effectiveness. It also believes that the current five-year time limit on such franchises should be extended to act as an incentive for operators to invest. I agree with those two things.
	The key changes that the Government are considering include improving arrangements for public performance controls across the network and giving local authorities a say over frequencies, timetables and fares. I would welcome such initiatives. The Greater Manchester passenger transport authority is committed to the principle of local transport authorities being given greater control over the bus network.
	I want the final legislation to include powers to enable local transport authorities to act as the procurer of local bus services through a franchising process. There should be powers that enable PTAs to stipulate networks and frequencies so as appropriately to marry capacity and demand; powers to direct capacity where and when it is required, including to integrate rather than compete with other modes; and powers to enable the specification of minimum quality standards across the network. There should be mechanisms to guarantee network stability, potentially by all operators being required to register services with the GMPTA and executive. There should also be powers to require compliance with the specific integrated multi-modal ticketing arrangements and powers to enable PTAs to set the level and structure of bus fares.
	I also want provisions to override existing competition law to enable PTAs and executives to invite individual operators either individually or jointly to bid for services against set frequencies—fully integrated with existing modes across the network. There should be powers to enable competition between bus operators off road; powers to devise, enforce and operate an incentive regime; powers to allocate slots for services passing through congested centres; and powers to ensure that customer and commercial data are shared in the interest of the public.
	"Putting Passengers First" strengthens the arrangements for voluntary and statutory partnerships by allowing the inclusion of fares and service levels. It also seeks to make it easier to achieve options for improving bus services through quality contracts. It says that franchising and quality contracts should be made a more realistic option via a new approval process. However, the process set out in PPF has the potential to be lengthy and convoluted. The traffic commissioners and transport tribunals—currently the regulators of vehicle safety and performance—are earmarked to determine a quality contract proposal. I hope that the Minister will reassure us today that, whatever changes are made, the introduction of quality contracts will be a speedy process.
	There are also concerns about the continuing influence of the competition authorities over local bus services. It is not clear from the Government document to what extent the Office of Fair Trading has agreed to step back from its stance that on-street competition is in the passengers' interests. The Government need to ensure that the OFT does not undermine the Government's bus policy and, by extension, their wider transport policy by continuing to obstruct sensible co-ordination and co-operation between operators. That is where co-opetition is really needed.
	I have some questions for the Under-Secretary, which I hope she will take away for serious consideration. I apologise to her as I will not be here for the summing-up. I would have liked to be, but some pressing matters at home mean that I will have to leave. Have the Government made any assessment of how long it would take for a quality contract to go from proposal to implementation under the process set out in "Putting Passengers First"?
	Will the new process for quality contracts set out in "Putting Passengers First" make quality contracts a more realistic option than the process set out in the Transport Act 2000, when the new process appears to have more stages to go through and a longer time scale? The new process could entail agreeing a plan with the Government on funding for associated bus priority measures, an inquiry by the traffic commissioners, an inquiry by a transport tribunal and the possibility of a judicial review.
	In addition, do the Government consider it appropriate for the traffic commissioners and transport tribunals to sit in judgment on the merits of a quality contract, when that proposal is central to wider transport strategies, including traffic management strategies and even road-user charging pilots?
	How will the Government ensure that traffic commissioners and transport tribunals have the necessary resources, skills and capacity, which would be relevant in determining the wider planning, social exclusion and regeneration implications of a quality contract proposal?
	Why do not the Government seek block exemption from competition legislation for local bus services, when that legislation is clearly hampering sensible co-operation on fares and timetables between operators against the interests of the public? What evidence do the Government have that schedule 10 to the Transport Act 2000 has encouraged operators to co-operate with one another on fares and timetables without fear of prosecution by the competition authorities?
	We have problems in the city of Salford. Buses have been withdrawn on the three main radial routes—from Little Hulton through Swinton to Manchester; from Worsley and Boothstown, through Eccles to Manchester; and from Cadishead and Irlam through Eccles to Manchester—and on other routes. Why cannot we allow PTEs and PTAs to buy and run buses where no private operator wishes to do so? I have no problem with the concept of competition, where appropriate; but where competition means that our constituents on the social routes are not serviced, that cannot be in their interests. I seriously ask the Government again to consider allowing the PTEs and PTAs the power and the resources to fill that public interest need.
	In conclusion, I ask the Government to ensure that the White Paper gives local government the power to get the balance right and to deliver the service in the interest of local people. That is what my constituents in Eccles want, and it would benefit not only my constituents or those in Greater Manchester, but those throughout England, too. The Government have taken a good step forward with the White Paper, and I hope that we can convince them that there are ways to improve their proposals even further.

Paul Truswell: There is always a danger in making regular contributions in the House about buses of being categorised, or even caricatured, as being something of an anorak, and I should like to make it clear from the outset that I do not collect bus numbers or bus ephemera, but I do collect hundreds of constituents' letters complaining about the quality of bus services and cuts in them.
	As I looked around the Chamber earlier today, I saw a lot of familiar faces—some of them have now gone—including my hon. Friends the Members for Eccles (Ian Stewart), for Manchester, Blackley (Graham Stringer) and for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) and my right hon. Friends the Members for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth) and for Newcastle upon Tyne, East and Wallsend (Mr. Brown), who has got form as a lobbyist on PTEs and quality contracts.
	For years, we few, we happy few, we band of brothers and sisters have banged the drum in favour of having more local powers for bus services, and we have continually banged our heads against a brick wall. That is why the debate, initiated in Government time, is such a massive watershed for us, and the Minister is smiling in acknowledgement. As my hon. Friend the Member for Eccles said, we have made our case in numerous Adjournment debates. Successive Ministers have read their briefings from civil servants, and they have dead batted our demands. In fact, it has been like facing a procession of Geoff Boycotts, quite frankly.
	At the Labour conference in autumn, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport said that he would
	"act to empower local communities. I will act to give the local transport authorities that need them real powers to make a difference."
	Amen and alleluia to that! At the time, I did not believe that such comment was possible; I had to pinch myself, and I even scoured the internet for reports of it, but I have confirmed that the Secretary of State did indeed say that.
	However, to echo a point made by previous speakers, including my hon. Friend the Member for Eccles, there is a "but". As is often the case, Old Nick lurks in the thicket, and the devil is in the detail, to use the cliché usually employed in the Chamber. Talking of Old Nick, I noted that the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson) paid overt and eulogistic tribute to Nicholas Ridley. I submit that, when it came to bus policy, and several other areas of policy, Nicholas Ridley approached with his bow doors well and truly open, because bus deregulation has been an absolute disaster. The hon. Gentleman paid tacit and implicit tribute to Margaret Thatcher, too, because it was she who said, when in office, that any man who travelled on buses at the age of 26 had to regard himself as a failure. That characterised Tory policy then, and, despite all the embellishments to it that we have heard today, it characterises Tory policy now.

Julian Brazier: I will not follow the hon. Gentleman in taking a personal line, but he says that bus deregulation was an absolute disaster; is he telling the House that he would like that policy to be reversed? That may come as a surprise to his Front-Bench colleagues.

Paul Truswell: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that extremely helpful intervention. The point was made well by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley that we do not want to go back to the deregulated days, although that has its attractions. We want a system of regulation. The Conservative spokesman, the hon. Member for North Shropshire, said that if we tightened up the way in which we use the subsidy system, everything would be okay. The reason that the subsidy system does not work is that we do not have any way of regulating it, as there are no contracts to which to keep people. In many areas, there is, in practice, a monopoly, and bus operators virtually get away with murder, as has always been said.
	As I was saying before I was interrupted, though not rudely, I cannot stress how important it is that quality contracts are made a more realistic option, as is suggested in the Select Committee report. We cannot have another false dawn, which is what a number of us predicted when quality contracts were introduced in the Transport Act 2000. Since deregulation, quality and standards have undoubtedly fallen, irrespective of what has been said by Conservative Members. In west Yorkshire, fares have gone up by over 50 per cent. in real terms, and that is a disincentive for people to travel by bus. The number of passengers has fallen by almost 40 per cent., which, in round figures, is some 100 million passenger journeys. Declines in other PTE areas have been even more precipitous.
	As has been said, bus companies can pick and choose what services they provide and where they provide them, and they can continue to make profits even when they are providing a poor service—services that are chopped, changed, missing or late. Passengers simply feel powerless in the face of that, and many people are denied a reliable and affordable service to work, school, college, the shops, health centres and hospitals.
	We heard some pious comments about the needs of people with disabilities. People with disabilities in my constituency plead for one thing: stability. They want services that they can trust, so that when they go out, they have a fair chance of the bus actually turning up. That is something that the deregulated system has simply failed to provide.
	When services are trimmed or cut, people understandably, as we have heard, turn to their MPs, their councillors or the passenger transport executive, only to find that there is precious little that they can do. What we get from the operators when they cut services is what I call the two-finger response. First, they say that the services are not profitable, and secondly, they suggest that we ask the PTE to give the operators even more subsidy to continue to run them.
	Passenger transport executives such as Metro in west Yorkshire currently subsidise about 13 per cent. of services. The rest are out of their control. In its own terms, deregulation has been an abject failure because it is impossible to gauge whether the taxpayer is getting value for money in a monopoly situation where only one company tenders for each contract.
	The network in my area is pretty typical of comparable areas. I cannot speak for urban areas. There are high frequency routes, such as the No. 4 to Pudsey, No. 16 to Farsley and No. 42 to Old Farnley, together with a combination of routes on the Leeds-Bradford corridor. The reason why those services are so frequent is that it is in the interests of the bus operators to maximise their profit by concentrating on routes with a captive market. Off that beaten track, in areas where there is a social need, such as council estates, the picture is dramatically different. The Opposition need to recognise that.
	The area has been subject to successive service changes, which have led to a concentration of resources and a move away from the unprofitable but socially desirable services. Last year, for example, a whole community was cut off a route without notice, leaving many residents, especially older people, stranded.
	Great play has been made of the use of partnerships. In the civil service briefs and speeches that we used to get from the Minister until recently there was a strong emphasis on partnerships. It must be accepted, even by people like me, that they work in certain circumstances, but only in locations such as those described by the hon. Member for North Shropshire and where the partnership is established entirely at the behest of the bus operator. If there is a profit in it for them, they will do it. If not, there is no prospect of a voluntary partnership arrangement.
	Changes have been made in my area to services such as the No. 97, No. 647 and No. 651 in the Guiseley and Yeadon areas. We could all recite a litany of problems, and a number of us have done so. The changes cause tremendous problems for regular travellers who depend on those services, quite apart from those who might be attracted out of their cars to use them if they were available and reliable. Frequency has been reduced on services that penetrate local housing estates and provide links to important shopping centres like Pudsey and the Owlcotes centre in my constituency.
	Links to facilities such as health centres, post offices and supermarkets are often ignored because the operator has no interest in meeting the public need, only in making a profit. Notable examples are the fact that there is no public transport link from my constituency to the newly rebuilt Wharfedale hospital in Otley or to the primary health care facilities at Eccleshill in Bradford, which are extremely important to many of my constituents who do not have ready access to alternative forms of transport.
	The decline in bus services, as has been said repeatedly, affects everyone, not just those who depend on buses or those who would like to use buses more. Poor services lead to increased car use, which creates even more congestion, pollution and road safety hazards in all our communities. On carbon emissions, we know from research carried out by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research that per passenger mile, coach and bus travel produces only 30 per cent. of the CO2 created by petrol fuelled cars and 40 per cent. of that created by diesels.
	Over the years, bus operators have won two important public relations battles. The first is to suggest that deregulation has worked; they clearly have dupes on the Opposition Benches to support that notion. The second is that local authorities and passenger transport authorities are not fit for purpose as regards commissioning bus services. That will continue to be a major bone of contention between certain Labour Members and our Front-Bench colleagues.
	Replacement of the "only practicable way test" is extremely welcome, but concerns have been expressed about the new process. If there is one message that I would like to convey to my hon. Friends on the Front Bench, it is that we do not want an insuperable legal high jump to be replaced by an interminable bureaucratic marathon, nor do we want a period of instability and uncertainty to be created by unnecessary tinkering with local structures.
	It would be interesting to know whether Ministers have carried out any assessment of how long it would take for quality contracts to go through to implementation under the process set out in the document "Putting Passengers First". It is a convoluted process that, if traced through step by step, could take an incredibly long time. PTAs and PTEs may have to negotiate with civil servants, especially as part of the QC approach requires Government funding. There may then be intervention by the traffic commissioners, an appeal to the transport tribunal, and almost inevitably, given that bus operators will fight this tooth and nail, a judicial review. That is why the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody), to whom we all genuflect on these issues, are absolutely right and require a response. I hope that Ministers understand why my hon. Friends and I do not think that the process sits squarely with what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said at the party conference about giving
	"local transport authorities that need them real powers to make a difference".
	My hon. Friend the Member for Eccles asked several questions that are of interest to those of us who represent areas with PTEs, and I do not intend to reiterate those.
	Turning to concessionary fares, I know from a recent meeting that my hon. Friend the Minister is fully aware of my personal concerns regarding the concessionary fare scheme. At the moment, the system appears to be giving a blank cheque to operators, who are in some areas jacking up their off-peak cash fares to up the ante in terms of raking in more and more public money by way of subsidy. This firm message needs to go out from my colleagues on the Front Bench: "If you continue to operate those sorts of manipulative and profiteering approaches to fares in order to milk the public purse for money, that will be held in the balance when we come to look at issues relating to regulation and quality contracts."
	The comprehensive spending review process that is moving towards a conclusion is an opportunity not only to meet some of the broader investment requirements of city regions such as Leeds but to deal with issues relating to concessionary fares. It is crucial, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East and Wallsend (Mr. Brown) said, that local authorities are reimbursed for running the concessionary fare system. At the moment, unless we get a grip on the matter and bring some control to bear, more and more services and concessionary schemes for other bus users will be cut to fuel the monster that we have created.
	I am most familiar with Leeds because I am one of its Members of Parliament. In the past 20 years, Leeds has created more jobs than any other major city apart from London. Between 1981 and 2002, it added 86,000 new jobs to its work force and is expected to provide approximately 46 per cent. of the region's additional 60,000 jobs between 2004 and 2014. Although jobs have been created in Leeds, many of the people who take them up live outside the city boundary.
	Passenger transport executive areas have some of the worst concentrations of deprivation in the country, with 84 out of the 100 most deprived neighbourhoods located in metropolitan areas. Investment to boost transport, especially buses, because of the proportion of public transport journeys for which they account, is essential to our areas.
	As I have said previously, even in Leeds, where there are sceptics like me, we have examples of effective partnership working. We have quality bus corridors, guided bus lanes and the free city bus service that links key points in the city with the main rail station. Welcome though those schemes are, it is clear that the resources available to PTEs are not enough to keep pace with the needs of the growing economies of our major cities or to boost the initiatives that make a genuine difference to bus travel.
	I make no bones about reiterating the point that was made about transport spending. In 2001, spending in London was £233 per head. By 2005-06, it had increased to £631 per head. London is our capital and needs a decent transport system, so no one begrudges priority being given to it. However, in Yorkshire and Humber, spending on transport in 2001 was £117 per head. By 2005-06, that had increased to £197 per head. The increase is welcome, but compared with what is happening in London—and other parts of the country—it is grossly inadequate.
	"Putting Passengers First", the Bill that will emanate from the discussions and the comprehensive spending review provide enormous opportunities for improving bus services in Leeds, west Yorkshire and the United Kingdom. I hope that my hon. Friends will seize them.

Iain Wright: It is a genuine pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Mr. Truswell). I intervened in the Westminster Hall debate on bus services in October that my hon. Friend the Member for Eccles (Ian Stewart) initiated. My hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey was present, and he should be commended for his good work on bus services. I also agree with him that it is good that the subject is being debated in Government time.
	Bus provision is an important feature of our country and, with concerns about access to services for all sections of society, growing congestion on our roads and the effects of transport on the environment, it is appropriate that the House should discuss the subject, which is rightly rising up the political agenda, in Government time.
	If there is anywhere in the country outside London and major metropolitan areas where bus services, as part of a co-ordinated public transport system, should work, it is Hartlepool and the wider sub-region. My town is a very centralised community, concentrated to a large extent on an urban core. I understand from research carried out as part of Hartlepool borough council's second local transport plan that some 99 per cent. of the borough's residents could access Hartlepool town centre in half an hour by public transport, even at peak times.
	The vast majority of journeys in Hartlepool are in the constituency itself. Unlike the experience of my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey, 72 per cent. of all travel to employment takes place in the borough of Hartlepool. Those two factors—the centralised population, together with journeys being concentrated within the town—should mean that Hartlepool is ripe for a successful bus transport system.
	In addition, more than two in five households in Hartlepool do not have access to a car. That is almost double the national average. That fact, combined with high levels of deprivation and economic inactivity, means that a high-quality bus service would allow access to a range of provisions for my constituents, including employment, education, health care and leisure. Yet access to—and take-up of—good bus services is simply not happening. In the period from 2001 to 2005, bus passenger numbers in Hartlepool declined by 3 per cent. year on year—a compound fall of about 9 per cent. This is consistent with the 10 per cent. drop in the use of buses and light rail in the north-east region in that period—the biggest fall anywhere in the country. Although car ownership in Hartlepool is about half the national average, as I mentioned earlier, the number of people who use a car to travel to and from work is higher than the country's average. There is no need for that, given the circumstances that I outlined earlier.
	Hartlepool is part of the Tees valley, a relatively small and self-contained sub-region. Travel within the Tees valley by public transport should be easy, cheap and reliable. Clearly, however, it is not. Bus patronage has fallen by 1.5 million passengers between 2001 and 2005. The existing bus network is largely based on patterns planned about half a century ago, which no longer reflect the employment, education and health needs of the population.
	Although I commend the five local authorities in the Tees valley for working together to pull services up—they are working to ensure that the concessionary fare for older people is co-ordinated on a Tees valley-wide basis, for example—clearly more needs to be done. The Tees valley has the potential to enjoy high economic growth in the next 20 years, but that will be hampered if there is too much congestion on the main roads. Even now, the A19—the major road through the Tees valley linking the sub-region with Tyne and Wear to the north and Yorkshire to the south—is heavily congested at most times. Equally, the potential for economic growth will not be realised if, as now, people cannot access education and employment because of inadequate public transport.

Robert Goodwill: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is important for people to have better transport links to hospitals, as many people in Hartlepool are worried about the distance that they have to travel to access health care?

Iain Wright: I might have to take the hon. Gentleman to the Standards Board over that intervention; he has obviously been reading my speech. My next paragraph is about access to health services, and nowhere are these problems more apparent.
	North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Trust is currently a two-hospital site, with some services at the University hospital of Hartlepool and some at the University hospital of North Tees. Bus provision between the two hospitals is extremely poor. Anyone attending an appointment in a hospital outside their town, whether it be Hartlepool or Stockton, will find it time-consuming and stressful, and attending the appointment will probably require two or three changes of bus, which can take hours and cause stress. There is also the prospect of access to health services getting worse without active and imaginative intervention.
	A review of acute services in the area by the independent reconfiguration panel concluded that a single-site hospital should be built between Hartlepool and Stockton. Because of the poor level of bus provision, I suppose that that option would be ideal because, at present, any location will be equally inaccessible to both communities. Any planning with regard to changes in acute services will need to adopt accessibility and the provision of bus transport to the new hospital as fundamental principles. I am concerned that that might not happen, however, based on current experience and on what my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey said on this issue earlier.
	One of the most modern, high-quality hospitals in the country is James Cook hospital in the south of the Tees valley. However, the bus service that allows Hartlepool people to travel to James Cook is due to be withdrawn soon because the private bus operator wants a greater level of subsidy to continue running the service. There must be a reason for that. There must also be a reason why, despite all the ingredients in my constituency and the surrounding area being in place for a co-ordinated and accessible first-class bus service, it is not happening.
	I think that the reason is deregulation. I agree with the Transport Committee's observation that the deregulated regime has exacerbated the decline in bus usage over the past 20 years. Deregulation has meant that bus operators are free to pick and choose which services they operate. They are free to concentrate on the more lucrative routes in an area, at the expense of the routes that could improve accessibility for more passengers, particularly the more vulnerable and disadvantaged in society.
	With deregulation we have the worst of all possible worlds. Either there is fierce competition among bus companies for the profitable services, with operators racing—quite often literally—to compete for the same customers on the same routes, causing chaos and confusion among passengers, or more commonly, certainly in my area, a single operator has a monopoly and therefore has the local authority and passengers over a barrel. Services can be chopped, changed or stopped with very little notice or consultation. The threat of cancelled services can extract extra subsidies from the local authority, or services are merely stopped abruptly, as happened recently in my constituency. Coupled with the GP surgery's move from West View to the Headland, the cancellation of the No. 5 service in the north of the town, which served the West View and Headland areas, means that hundreds of people in one of the most deprived parts of the country and suffering from appalling health inequalities no longer have access to health care.
	I fear that, to maintain profitability, bus operators may concentrate on cost reduction rather than trying to raise revenue. That means cuts and reduced investment. It means, for instance, that older buses are not renovated. Some bus drivers in my constituency are worried about increasing working hours, which are part of the same problem. It is all about worsening terms and conditions and cutting services, and it results in a vicious circle. Cuts impair the quality and reliability of the service, which in turn leads to a reduction in the number of passengers. Passengers who are unhappy with the service will want to go elsewhere. In the context of confusing service provision, it is little wonder that potential passengers vote with their feet or their cars—if they have cars—or by reducing the quality of their own and their families' lives by not taking up employment, training, health or leisure opportunities.
	It is essential for the Government to intervene to resolve those problems. I agree with my hon. Friend the Minister, who wrote in her foreword to the Confederation of Passenger Transport's 2006 document "On The Move":
	"buses can only deliver their full potential if they are given the right conditions. Frankly, the creation of the best conditions cannot be left to chance. Active participation by operators and authorities working together is the way forward".
	That is why I think the proposals in "Putting Passengers First", the Department's 2006 document, are so important. The statutory quality partnership and quality contract schemes are important principles that will raise the quality of bus service.
	Quality contract partnerships should be explored in more detail in Hartlepool. The local authority should be given a clear responsibility for developing and supporting the infrastructure that is necessary to provide a first-class bus network in the area. The authority should be responsible for high-quality bus stops, real-time timetable information, bus priority lanes and signalling priority for buses. My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Chris Mole), who is no longer in the Chamber, made some interesting suggestions about the possibility of texting passengers information about when buses would arrive. I think that we need to be innovative in that way, and the local authority could provide the necessary infrastructure.
	In return, a single operator or group of operators should have responsibility for providing a comprehensive and socially inclusive bus service, incorporating not just lucrative routes, but routes that are considered to be socially important. There should be modern, environmentally friendly, accessible buses that all members of society can use. All the research I have seen suggests that the impact of every £1 spent by local authorities on bus priority schemes is equivalent to that of £3 of direct bus subsidy for private companies.
	Partnerships can be effective and efficient and provide a way of improving bus services, but they need extra teeth. I welcome the changes that the Department proposed in December, including the proposal to replace the "only practicable way" test in the terms of quality contract schemes with a public-interest test. As my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey said, the devil will be in the detail, but I am pleased that the bar has been lowered. I hope that the change will bring an end to deregulation for local authorities and their communities, and revised and modern regulation for the benefit of passengers.
	I want to say a little about the terms and conditions of bus drivers. Although I am not part of the Transport and General Workers Union, I welcome its campaign on the subject. I am concerned, as are bus drivers in my constituency, that the drive for cost cutting by bus operators has led to longer bus driver hours, without breaks. Driving on increasingly busy streets for periods such as five and a half hours or six hours at a time, with increasing road rage from fellow drivers, is not conducive to safe and alert driving. I am worried that longer hours put at risk the safety of drivers, their passengers and other road users.
	I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister recalls that I have tabled written parliamentary questions to her on the matter under discussion, and I hope that she will address that in her winding-up speech, as well as the TGWU campaign to drive down driver hours and for there to be more frequent breaks. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say and, more importantly, to seeing that there is a better regime of regulation for the benefit of existing and future passengers and for the country as a whole.

Tobias Ellwood: I congratulate the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Wright) on his speech. He spoke with passion, knowledge and concern about the issues affecting his constituency. I certainly agree with his concluding comments about bus drivers and their requirements, and I hope that the Minister will address them in her winding-up speech.
	I made an intervention on the right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East and Wallsend (Mr. Brown), who is no longer in his place, about the timing of the debate. That was prompted by his comment about the number of Members of all parties who were present to participate in the debate. It is interesting that the debate has fallen on the last day before recess, and also that the subject is limited to buses alone. I would have preferred a more general debate on transport, because the subject of buses cannot be isolated from transport in general. I do not think that any Member who has contributed so far has spoken solely about buses; they have all talked about a transport system or an integrated network, and about the role of cars and trains as well as buses—and, importantly, about the use of different forms of transport by passengers.

Paul Truswell: Will the hon. Gentleman accept from me, as one of the usual suspects who turns up religiously for debates on such subjects, that we have had many debates on transport, encompassing rail, bus and other forms of transport, many of which were initiated by the Front-Bench team of his own party, but that they have all shared the characteristic that little has been said in them about buses?

Tobias Ellwood: The hon. Gentleman will not be surprised to learn that I do not agree with what he says. What I am emphasising is that if you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, had been strict, many contributors to the debate would have been ruled out of order for straying from talking simply about buses. I, too, am likely to stray.
	There is a certain irony in that we are having this debate on a day when there is a lot of snow outside and much of our transport system in Britain has ground to a halt. I cycled into work this morning, as I do on most mornings, and I was amazed at how few cars were on the roads—and at how few buses there were, as well. That might have been because many people decided to stay at home.
	The backdrop to this debate—on buses, transport, or however else we might address it—is the Transport Act 1985. Following that, we have had the various Transport Committee reports, which the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) has been involved in and spoken about. Most recently, the Eddington transport study was produced in December last year.
	However, I want to focus on an aspect of the Stern review. It addresses climate change and the role that public transport can play in cutting emissions. We must not forget that emphasis if we are to take global warming seriously. Increasing the use of public transport is pivotal to achieving our aims in that regard.
	It has been said that problems have been caused as a result of the privatisation that stems from the 1985 Act, and they must be looked at. Currently, just five companies manage 95 per cent. of our bus network. That raises questions about competition and diversity of use. It is also worth noting that there has been a net decline in the use of buses outside London. Members of all parties must address that.
	I have heard many times that the Labour party thinks that the Conservatives are in love with the motor car. No doubt that observation will be met with nods approval. In fact, there are many Members in all parts of the House—

Chris Mullin: I recall a time not very long ago when the Conservative party labelled itself the party of the motorist, so nobody should be in any doubt about its position.

Tobias Ellwood: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me for saying this, but I am probably not as old—and probably not as wise—as him. I was not a Member of the House when that comment was made, but I can speak for the party as it stands today and update the hon. Gentleman on our position, which is very clear. There is a role for the motor car in our lives, but there is also a role for public transport. People's reliance on the motor car is often based simply on the lack of faith in public transport. If we improved the standard and efficiency of public transport, there would be a huge shift toward being passengers instead of drivers. I hope that that clarifies the Conservative party's position, in contrast with the more archaic view that the hon. Gentleman tried to tease out of me.
	We face a huge dilemma in trying to get more people to use their cars less. As has been said, we need timely and continuing investment in our bus services, and legislation that provides reliable, safe, affordable and—most importantly—accessible travel. Unfortunately, that is not the situation in my constituency. As many Members will be aware, their having attended party conferences over the years, Bournemouth is renowned for having an elderly population and a student population, and a large service industry because of the tourists whom it attracts. Many of the people in those groupings do not own cars, so they rely on public transport. However, last year the Liberal Democrat council decided to sell off the "yellow" bus company, as it was known. In fact, it was part-owned by the council, which was allowed not total but a little control, in order to ensure that the system covered the whole town. The council gained £13 million from that sale, but I have not seen where the money has been invested. It has also sold all sorts of other things, but that is a separate road that I will not wander down.
	As a result of that full privatisation, commercial interests have overtaken the need to provide a responsible service for the people of Bournemouth. Routes have been cut and commercial priorities have prevailed, and as a result, profit is winning over diversity of service. A good example is to be found just down the road from where I live, in Boscombe. Boscombe pier is one of the big tourist attractions, but for some five months there was no public transport to take people to it from the main bus depot. There used to be the No. 27 bus, but the service was simply withdrawn. When I, along with many others, wrote to the company, it said that the service simply was not viable as not enough people were using it. Only after a huge campaign by the good local newspaper the  Daily Echo and many local representatives, including me, was a service finally reinstalled. As Members will be aware, where there is a social need, local authorities are required to provide such services. However, I am afraid to say that the Lib Dem council has been very slow in meeting its obligations in this regard. Consequently, Bournemouth has a bus service that leaves much to be desired.
	The hon. Member for Hartlepool spoke passionately about the problems that the elderly—or, indeed, anyone else with health needs—experience when visiting hospitals and so forth. Public transport services play a huge part in that regard, but in Bournemouth it is now very difficult to get to the hospital or to get across town to the university; indeed, it is even very difficult for children to get to school during the school run, simply because there are now so few bus routes.
	I turn to infrastructure, on which the Eddington report places great emphasis. Bournemouth's infrastructure has changed little in the last 20 years. However, following the Kate Barker review, some 20,000 new houses have been built in Bournemouth, and about 1,000 houses are being built there every single year. That means an increased population, with more people living in a confined area. The increase in the number of cars and buses causes all the roads to become very congested. We need investment in infrastructure if we are to have a transport network that actually works. There are bottlenecks across Bournemouth because buses do not have access from one side of the town to the other.
	I would like the Government to consider ways of introducing monorail systems in various towns. Places such as Miami, Sydney and Vienna have introduced light railway systems that whisk people from one side of town to the other with ease. We will not be able to solve our transport problems unless we have massive investment in infrastructure. I cannot envisage that investment being made, but that solution would enable people in Bournemouth to travel from the airport to the hospital, on to the football club—which has huge attendances, involving many people travelling back and forth—and then to the main railway station and the sea front. Those places are practically in a straight line, and a monorail would solve much of the congestion in Bournemouth overnight. Where the money would come from is another question, but from an economic perspective the investment of that money would save Bournemouth huge sums, increase investment in the area and make it more attractive to businesses. Therefore, in the long run, it would cover the costs of improving Bournemouth's transport and help to meet our climate change obligations.

Gwyneth Dunwoody: In his endearingly unlikely speech, the hon. Gentleman is inducing a state of near panic in his Front-Bench colleagues. Is he seriously suggesting that his monorail scheme, which is not the cheapest form of transport, should be subsidised by the ratepayer or the taxpayer?

Tobias Ellwood: The tone of the hon. Lady's question makes me regret giving way to her. If she had listened to my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson)—no doubt it will be repeated when my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) winds up—she would have heard about the local initiatives and solutions. That is not a top-down approach or an attempt to say that the Government in London should tell local authorities what to do. I am advocating the idea for Bournemouth and there is huge support for it. The question is where the funding comes from —[ Interruption. ] The hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich suggests from a sedentary position that it would cost money. My point is that heading towards gridlock is already costing Bournemouth a huge amount of money. It is one of the most popular seaside towns in Britain, but it is losing its attractiveness because we cannot solve our transport problems.

Eric Joyce: I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is aware that the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond)—I believe that he is an Opposition transport spokesman—has proposed a 10 per cent. cut in the rate of corporation tax, which equates to £20 billion. Does the hon. Gentleman think that is consistent with the call for greater investment that he has made?

Tobias Ellwood: I am not familiar with those proposals, so I cannot comment on them now. I am surprised by the reluctance to consider such ideas, as we must think outside the box when it comes to meeting future transport needs. Simply suggesting a bus lane when there is no space for one will not work or solve the huge problems that we have identified in Bournemouth. In 15 or 20 years, we will see such schemes in many towns across Europe, given the need to move people swiftly from one side of town to the other by public transport.
	We have an environmental and economic obligation to improve public transport, but as more and more passengers are dissatisfied with bus services, they are using the buses less and less. I hope that in the little time that the Government have left in office we will see some serious initiatives that will turn around our bus services and make them work for Britain.

Clive Betts: I welcome the Government's consultation document, "Putting Passengers First", and this debate in Government time. I also welcome the Minister's clear commitment to further and wide consultation on the proposals, which is the right way to approach making legislation.
	For some time, it has been fairly obvious to bus passengers and would-be bus passengers in Sheffield and south Yorkshire—and to the PTA, local councils and local MPs—that the current arrangements do not work. I welcome the Select Committee report that supports that conclusion, and it is nice to see that Ministers now agree that there has to be a change.
	I listened with some amazement to the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson), who opened the debate for the Opposition by saying that deregulation had arrested the decline of bus usage in this country. What has happened in south Yorkshire since 1986 has been a complete disaster.
	It is probably not surprising that the number of bus passengers is only one third of what it used to be, nor that the total mileage covered by the bus companies is only two thirds of what it was formerly. Since 1986, fares have risen by 1,300 per cent., compared with an increase in the retail prices index of 100 per cent. in the same period. Buses have become a very expensive form of transport, especially for people on low incomes.
	The arrangements in south Yorkshire and Sheffield mean that, effectively, there is no comprehensive bus service or network. Because there is no through-ticketing to speak of, there is no integration of service. The original idea behind Sheffield's Supertram was that local bus services would feed into its route, thus achieving co-ordinated local transport provision. As soon as the tram was built, however, the bus companies altered their routes to compete with it. The result was that they were less user friendly for the local population.
	Some of my constituents do not have well paid jobs, but they have to get up early to get to work by 7 am. Having no car, they have to rely on their local bus; yet the bus companies need give only 42 days notice before taking a service away: when that happens, they effectively take away people's jobs as well. The people who have suffered most in south Yorkshire since 1986 are those who are socially and economically excluded, and that exclusion is often due to the fact that local public transport provision and bus services are so poor.
	I accept that Ministers are right to say that local PTAs should be able to choose from a range of options. The partnership arrangements that exist in some parts of the country can work well, although only in certain very particular circumstances. I remember very well the proposals a few years ago for a transport partnership in Sheffield, which promised improved services in the north of the city. We soon realised that those improvements were being achieved by transferring buses from the south of Sheffield. That was how the partnership was being delivered, and the approach displayed by bus companies in general renders many of us highly sceptical about their intentions when they talk about improving services.
	Many of us believe that quality contracts represent the best way forward for our localities. We do not want to go back to 1986, with municipal bus companies and full regulation; instead, we want to draw on the London experience, because we recognise that the capital has certain unique features. I welcome the proposals in the document to remove the "only practicable way" test, as it is clearly a major obstacle to the introduction of quality contracts, and to remove the role of Secretary of State in second-guessing what local transport authorities do. Both proposals are eminently sensible.
	Are Ministers sure that they have got right the process for instituting quality contracts in the future? The governance of local transport authorities—that is, whether members are directly or indirectly elected—has yet to be finally determined but, ultimately, those members will be accountable. If an authority decides that a quality contract is the best way to deliver services for bus passengers, and would-be passengers, there needs to be a simple and effective way to introduce such a contract.
	What must not happen is that, in five or six years' time, we find ourselves asking, "Why haven't quality contracts happened? We know that they are the right way to deliver bus services in many parts of the country, but why haven't they happened for technical reasons?" Those are the questions that the current legislation has forced us to ask.
	Last night I asked the director-general of South Yorkshire PTE about extra resources. A lot of extra money has been spent on delivering bus franchising in London, but he said that he believed there is competition out there if we can tap into it. The steps that South Yorkshire has taken down the quality contract route have shown that a number of bus companies, some of which do not currently operate in this country, are interested in tendering for franchises. He believes that if we move to quality contracts now, an enormous range of benefits will result: a single network, integration between bus services and other forms of transport such as trains and trams, through- ticketing, removal of the oldest buses, removal of congestion on some routes where there is competition and buses are falling over themselves, diversion of buses on to routes to communities that are currently not served at all and smoothed out timetables, such as the one for the route from Mosborough in my constituency, from where four buses an hour run into town but where there is a 25-minute wait twice an hour because the buses run close together and are from different companies between which there is no co-operation. Franchising would provide stability of service for the passenger, thereby avoiding the 42-day change, which costs people their jobs, and ensuring that operators know where they stand.
	The director-general also believes that by increasing services we would get better value than we are currently getting from our tendered service, whereby bus operators increase the price every year and fewer routes are run at an increased cost to the PTE. All those benefits could be delivered with no extra funding. If we had more funding, we could do even better. All those improvements—an integrated network, newer buses, better dispersal of buses, better co-ordination of timetables and greater stability—could be delivered for the same sum. We must, therefore, look seriously at that and, if there are obstacles in the way, we must remove them.
	I have already expressed concerns, as have others, about the way in which bus operators are using the concessionary fares scheme. We want a really good scheme that is valued by pensioners throughout the whole country. Bus operators are increasing fares cleverly. They are not increasing fares on weekly tickets as much as one-off fares because they know that those who pay for weekly tickets use the bus regularly. They are increasing the one-off ticket fares, knowing that they will get compensation for concessionary travel. They have increased fares by 10 per cent. We know that the PTE will get only a 4 per cent. increase in its grant, so the gap has to be filled by cuts in tendered services. That is what will happen unless we change the scheme.
	There is not the same problem in London because the concessionary scheme is part of the package and operators have to tender for the whole package, including the concessions. There is an element of competition for the pricing of concessionary fares, which does not happen outside London, where operators are simply handed a sum of money. They then go to appeal, so it is not even within the control of the PTE to come to an arrangement with operators. It would greatly benefit local bus users, PTEs and the Government in the proper use of public money if we made different arrangements for funding concessionary fares through a quality contract arrangement.
	Let us make sure that we get it right. Let us make sure that we do not simply have a good idea that could deliver enormous improvements in bus services for our constituents and could get people who do not currently use buses to use them, but then, for all our good intentions, fail to deliver a workable practicable system.
	As I say, I was talking to directors-general of PTEs last night, including Roy Wicks for South Yorkshire. He has been progressive in looking at these issues and I commend him for the initiative that South Yorkshire PTE has taken so far on quality contracts. As professional technical officers, they believe that the process to put passengers first could take even longer than the current arrangements. The best guess is that it would take at least 21 months to implement current arrangements, considering what a PTE and executive would have to go through—probably rightly—followed by the traffic commissioner, followed by an appeal to a tribunal, followed by a potential court appeal and a potential judicial review. That could take much longer than 21 months. If the process even takes 21 months, it will not happen. Other Members have spoken about timetables and it is important for Ministers to address those points.
	Before a transport executive decides whether to recommend a quality contract to the transport authority, it should fully assess the transport needs in the area. It should consult the public and local authorities and reach agreement on bus priority measures. It should assess the financial implications, which are important. It is absolutely right to do all that before recommending that the authority go ahead with a quality contract. My concerns are about the next two steps, however.
	First, I shall deal with the appeal mechanism. I understand the Minister's view that appeal by judicial review is a messy, time-consuming business, but will appeals to a transport tribunal be made on the same basis as a judicial review, in that they will not second-guess the policy reasons why the PTE and the PTA came to a view, or will they be held on the same grounds as judicial review? In that case, the appeal would simply determine whether the PTE and the PTA had gone through the right processes to reach their decision. That is a crucial question in terms of democratic accountability, so it is important that Ministers give a more thorough explanation.
	Secondly, if there is a mechanism for appeal to a transport tribunal, will there still be the possibility of judicial review, too? I take the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) about the expense involved. The transport tribunal appeal process will not reduce costs for PTEs—if that is what Ministers intend—but will add to them if there is still the option of judicial review, because bus operators will use every possible stage of the process to delay something that could cost them profits. We need clarity about the role of the transport tribunal in the appeal process. Will it be on the same basis as judicial review? Will it be in addition to judicial review, and will it also be possible to take the case to the Court of Appeal?
	I listened carefully to my hon. Friend the Minister's comments about the role of the traffic commissioner. He used the word "appeal", but according to "Putting Passengers First", there is no appeal as such—it is simply a required stage in the process—and he used the word "review", whereas according to the document, the word is "approve". After all the appropriate consultations and considerations, a scheme decided on by the PTE and the PTA has to go before a traffic commissioner, who, sitting with expert assessors, decides whether to approve it.
	The Government are legislating on local government devolution so that powers can be transferred back to elected local representatives. Local councillors on the four South Yorkshire councils were elected on a manifesto that supports the introduction of quality contracts. They formed a passenger transport authority, which instructed the passenger transport executive to go through all the necessary procedures to decide whether quality contracts were right. At the end of the process, having obtained local support, they decided in favour of quality contracts, yet a non-elected, appointed traffic commissioner could overturn that decision and refuse to approve it. After 10 years in office, is that a feasible approach for a Labour Government who believe in more devolution of power to local representatives and local councils?
	I have no problem with giving traffic commissioners extra enforcement powers, but I question their role in approving the policy decisions of elected members. No one is against expert advice, so if Ministers want to keep a role for the traffic commissioner and the independent panel of advisers, the PTE could be asked to consult them as part of the consultation and assessment process. The PTE could take account of those expert views before making a recommendation to the PTA. If the transport commissioner were brought in at that stage—so that they are not second-guessing a democratic decision, but are asked for their advice, which has to be part of the democratic process—that would be eminently sensible and would shorten the process, because it would take place in parallel rather than as an after stage.
	I hope that the Minister will take on board those comments not as criticism of the Government's ultimate intentions, but as helpful suggestions as to how they might better get towards the ultimate objective. In five years' time, we could come back and look at a piece of legislation and say that Ministers had many good intentions, but the legislation has had no practical effect, or we could find that we have passed legislation that has dramatically improved the quality of life of some of the most socially and economically excluded people in our community. That is the opportunity that we have. I hope that we are going to take it.

Barbara Keeley: It is a pleasure to follow the speeches of my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) and the hon. Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood). It was good to have at least some interest in this important subject from the Opposition Benches. Perhaps it was standing in Worsley in the 2001 general election that first ignited the hon. Gentleman's interest in the subject.
	When we start to plan ahead, it is important that we reflect on the day-to-day reality of the bus services that people are living with. The Transport Committee report says that there is a perception
	"that bus services are generally unreliable and of a poor quality; that vehicles are old and inaccessible; that drivers are rude; and that passengers are ... uncomfortable."
	My constituents' current and recent experiences of their local services bears out the Committee's view. In fact, our services have recently become much worse than that.
	Like most MPs, I had a regular low level of grumbling from my constituents about bus services. Bus timings were unreliable and some drivers were rude, particularly when they refused to pick up parents with buggies because they already had one buggy on board. Commuters into Manchester said that they found bus vehicles dirty and cold on many morning journeys. However, that all became much worse when the main provider, First, decided to reorganise the routes and timetables of bus services to and from my constituency. First labelled its reorganisation of bus services an attempt to reach a service that "better matches" user demands. The result turned out to be completely the opposite.
	The extensive remodelling of services has had a profound effect on the way in which many of my constituents are able to carry on their daily lives, because in many cases it has proved to be both restrictive and extremely disruptive. A group of hundreds of my constituents were so unhappy about the changes and so dissatisfied with the services that they presented me with a petition, which I presented to the Minister a few months ago.
	As my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Chris Mole) said earlier, older people are among those who most rely on bus services. Many of my older constituents need public transport to complete basic, everyday tasks such as going to the shops and picking up prescriptions or their pensions. I have been contacted by many elderly constituents who have been adversely affected by the remodelling of bus services. They are finding it harder, if not impossible, to continue with their essential, regular local bus journeys.
	I will give just one example. The 553 service from Leigh to Bolton has undergone major route and timetable changes. It started as a half-hourly service. It is now only hourly. Furthermore, the service used to travel from Walkden, at the centre of my constituency, to Bolton via Farnworth, a local centre for work and shopping. Since the bus service remodelling, Farnworth has been cut out of the route altogether, thus removing the only means of direct public transport between Boothstown in my constituency and Farnworth. An elderly constituent informed me that many pensioners that she knows travelled from Boothstown to Farnworth because it has the only Asda store locally. However, to get there now, pensioners would have to change buses in the middle of Walkden, cross a busy dual carriageway, and walk 500 m uphill to a different bus stop. As my constituent made clear to me, many elderly people are now simply unable to make that journey to do their shopping, because that changed route is too difficult.
	Talking to constituents, I have found that alterations to their bus services are debilitating and that they are effectively chipping away at older people's independence, leaving many of them feeling isolated and frustrated. Many hon. Members have referred to the welcome concessionary fares, but elderly constituents have been telling me that it is absolutely no good having concessionary fares that allow them to travel for free if there are no suitable services.
	The changes are also having a severe impact on people with families, especially those with caring responsibilities. Such people often rely on commuter bus services to get them to work and back home again quickly and reliably. I was recently contacted by a constituent who found that the changes to the services were making it difficult for her to ensure that she could get home from work in time to be there for her children. She is a single parent living in Tyldesley and relies on the bus to travel 10 miles into central Manchester, where she works. She has arranged her working hours completely around the 32 bus service so that she can care for her children herself, which is important to her. The 32 was the only bus that she could take to work following the removal of the 35 late last year. Indeed, it is the only means of public transport from Tyldesley to Manchester—there is no train or tram service.
	It now appears that that service, which my constituent tells me is packed full with commuters every morning, is to be withdrawn, due, the bus company says, to falling numbers. With no other way of getting to and from work, my constituent, like many others, is left with the undesirable choice of buying a car, or changing work location—if she can find a more local job. The Wigan area, which my constituency covers in part, is the part of the north-west with the fasting growing car ownership—it is not difficult to see why. My constituent said to me:
	"First's policy in Worsley is an absolute contradiction to the policies of the Government and the Local Authority. What we've got needs improving, yet First Bus seem intent on abandoning us altogether".
	It is, of course, unacceptable that families are being forced to make such large changes to their lives entirely because of poorly scheduled or re-routed bus services. It is unfair that hard-working people who are trying to provide for their families are having that task made harder. They should not be put in a position in which being able to travel to work means compromising their family life.
	As my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe said, there is an important economic argument to be made because inadequate public transport provision is becoming a major barrier to people's ability to work. First has recently withdrawn the Little Hulton stop from its 37 and 554 buses to Manchester and the Trafford centre respectively. Little Hulton is in the top 10 per cent. of the most deprived wards nationally. It has the lowest car ownership figures in my constituency, with only 53 per cent. of people having access to a car. There are very few local sources of employment, so my constituents from Little Hulton have to travel to get to work.
	Those two bus routes allowed people in that deprived part of my constituency to travel to work. However, their withdrawal leaves many workers with no alternative but to leave their jobs. Additionally, changes made to our local services by the bus companies are tying the hands of people searching for jobs by restricting their options to those few destinations that have a bus link to where they live.
	The only substantial supermarket in the Salford wards of my constituency is in Walkden, a once thriving town that used to have a market and a wide range of local shops. Walkden centre is in need of regeneration and I am determined that that will happen. However, people in three areas in my constituency are unable to travel to Walkden by bus, which is a possible contributor to the further decline of the town's life as a retail and commercial centre. All that completes the picture that has been painted so often in the debate: bus deregulation did not work.
	A further serious aspect of the parlous state of bus services in Worsley is the fact that a major service reconfiguration in the NHS will require constituents to travel further—this is similar to the point that was touched on by my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Wright). The planned reconfiguration of in-patient services affecting women, babies and children in my constituency would require many to travel to hospitals in either Bolton or central Manchester. Salford has a higher than average proportion of people without a car—about 40 per cent. As I mentioned earlier, the figure is about 50 per cent. in wards such as Little Hulton.
	As Salford council's overview and scrutiny committee commented, the removal of obstetric services from the local Hope hospital would have a "significant detrimental impact" on our pregnant women and families wanting to visit them in hospital. Indeed, the joint committee of PCTs, which has considered the reconfiguration, was told:
	"during the peak period for travel times, the journey to Central Manchester is likely to take longer ... it is not known to what extent this would change patient flows".

Julian Brazier: The hon. Lady is making an interesting point. When they closed some of the facilities at my local hospital—at one point, they were threatening to close the whole hospital—we made those same points. We were told that they were running a national health service not a bus company, so the matter could not be taken into account in health planning.

Barbara Keeley: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that contribution. This is a new aspect and it is interesting to note that it appeared in our more recent reconfiguration discussions. As I mentioned, there was a report to the joint committee of PCTs. One or two of my hon. Friends have mentioned it and it seems that, in view of the reconfigurations, planning for further travel to hospitals will have to take place.
	As I mentioned earlier, services to Bolton from parts of my constituency have been either cut or axed altogether. Council members commented in a recent submission to the Secretary of State for Health that travelling to Bolton would be very difficult from the western wards of Salford. Although NHS clinicians favoured moving services to Bolton or central Manchester, our current hospital, the Hope hospital in Salford, is much more accessible for many people living in Salford and other areas such as Trafford and Bury. It has excellent motorway and trunk road links and it can be reached by Metrolink trams.
	I very much hope that those considerations, together with concerns about clinical issues, will mean that different recommendations emerge when the hospital reconfiguration is reviewed by the independent reconfiguration panel. However, as I touched on, the thrust of changes to NHS acute services is now becoming clear. In-patients and their families will undoubtedly have to travel further in future to use specialist hospital services and planning for public transport will now have to take that into account.
	All these matters have become more controversial in Worsley, Salford and across Greater Manchester since the passenger transport authority and the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities submitted proposals to pilot road pricing as part of a transport innovation fund bid. Many thousands of words have been written about those proposals in our local and regional press. Perhaps the main feeling is summed up in a quote from the  Manchester Evening News:
	"Before a penny is taken on any given corridor, there must be efficient public transport options, not just unreliable buses or sardine-like commuter trains".
	There were also comments on the need to develop park-and-ride schemes to serve those areas because drivers would be leaving their cars on the outskirts—something that was not done, I have to say, in many places when the Metrolink tram service was initially developed.
	As MP for Worsley, I am very concerned that our local authorities are planning for road pricing when our public transport, particularly bus services, is still in such a state. Not only do we have the poor service that I have already described, but passengers have faced bus fare increases of 42 per cent. above inflation. On the future of our bus services, a poll in the  Manchester Evening News found that 75 per cent. of people locally supported re-regulation, though as other hon. Members have made clear, none of us is arguing for a return to the 1980s-style regulation of buses.
	My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport in a recent speech said:
	"If we're to tackle congestion, we need better bus services. If we're to cut overall vehicle emissions, we need better bus services. And if we're to develop road pricing schemes... we need better bus services."
	My Worsley constituents need to see better bus services in place and working well long before any consideration of road pricing is made. The level of controversy generated by the idea of piloting road pricing brought to a head how people felt about that.
	The Transport Committee stated that in all major metropolitan areas outside London the present regime is not working and, indeed, that current arrangements cannot be made to work. I have highlighted the example of a constituency in Greater Manchester where arrangements have caused such a decline in services that they are impacting on people's family lives, their jobs and career options and the vitality of local shopping in town centres. We still have a mountain to climb to improve services for my constituents in the way that I would like.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley (Graham Stringer) described our providers as avaricious public-subsidy junkies operating near-monopolies. I would not have put it quite that way, but I believe that some of my constituents who are trying to use local bus services may well agree with it.
	On behalf of my constituents, I hope that the Government's proposals in "Putting Passengers First", the quality contracts, the quality partnerships and the role of traffic commissioners lead to better services. But I further hope that the Government and local authorities will continue to develop and innovate to achieve a bus policy framework that works.

Eric Joyce: I rise to speak briefly in the debate, and I do so hesitantly because the document "Putting Passengers First", from which the debate extends, essentially applies to England and Wales. I have listened to hon. Members speaking with great authority on these issues, with which hon. Members south of the border will deal on a daily or weekly basis. In Scotland, Members of the Scottish Parliament will tend to deal with the quality of bus services and so on, so I intend to stay out of that side of the debate.
	I should like to introduce an aspect that I have not heard any hon. Member mention and that is quite close to my heart: the manufacturing of buses, which should be included under the banner headline of a debate on buses. My constituency contains the leading bus manufacturer probably in Europe, certainly in the UK: Alexander Dennis Ltd—ADL. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary met the chief executive and other board members of ADL quite recently in Birmingham. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport has visited the site—his surname is the same as part of company's name, which is an additional link, I like to think, but perhaps I am just dreaming about that.
	ADL, in its previous incarnation, was almost bust about three years ago. It was in administration, and there was a serious threat that all 1,000 workers would lose their jobs, as they did in some other sites across the UK. When ADL came in, some of the management were already involved with the company in its previous incarnation and some of them were new. The chairman has previously been the chief executive. They have made a remarkable success, and 900 workers are now employed on the site. They have quadrupled their output in the past three years. They are exporting to north America and to the far east and Hong Kong. They employ 300 additional people in Guildford and another 200 in after-sales service across the world in the places where they sell their buses.
	When I take my children on the bus to school on Monday and Tuesday mornings, and if we can get the seats upstairs at the front, it is quite exciting, and I am always proud of the fact that there is a good chance that the bus was built in my constituency. ADL is at the very forefront of all the environmental improvements and modern developments, such as those for access, on buses. I am led to understand that it is the only company that has a double-decker product output that conforms to all the requirements of the new European legislation and the more stringent requirements of TFL. So ADL is doing fantastically well locally.
	I spoke to ADL's representatives briefly about the debate, and they have a great interest in the legislation, of course. Their interest is that a very large part of their market is in the domestic market of the UK. Although I understand that the manufacturers are very comfortable with the general principles that underpin "Putting Passengers First", there is a concern that the new arrangements—I will not go into the detail, as that is not really for me, given that the arrangements are different in Scotland—might perhaps lead to some uncertainly among the five major operators and one or two smaller ones and therefore to a delay in orders.
	It is estimated that between 4,000 and 5,000 jobs were lost in the industry in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I understand that, on the back of the legislation that was passed then, there was hesitation, uncertainty and delays in ordering by the main operators for several years. That obviously led to job losses in the industry. There is no question of that happening on this occasion, but when any policy is reformed, there will always be some ambiguity and uncertainty.
	It is very important for the 900 of my constituents who work at ADL and, indeed, constituents who work for bus manufacturers across the UK, that the new arrangements are proposed and executed by the Government and then by the local commissioners and local authorities in a way that removes, as far as possible, the concerns and ambiguities that operators might have, so that there is no hesitation in ordering. The future order book is what keeps so many of my constituents in jobs. Indeed, 900 people in my constituency are employed by ADL directly, but as hon. Members will know, there is also the knock-on effect on many jobs elsewhere in the supply chain to consider. Many components are sourced locally, and other local services are affected, too; for example, the workers buy their chips at the local chip shop, so the company has a big effect. When my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East and Wallsend (Mr. Brown) mentioned the effect of buses on local economies, I think that he was referring to services, but I am thinking of the big effect that the manufacturing plant in my constituency has on the local economy.
	To conclude, I hope that when my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary sums up she will allay the apprehension that is felt, as far as she can. It is not a fear or deep worry, but there is apprehension among manufacturers such as ADL that there may be transitional difficulties with local authorities and traffic commissioners. There are concerns about whether those bodies will have sufficient capacity to process the change, and whether there will be delays in the system, which would lead operators to fear that new investment might be wasted, as they could lose routes. Investment in the bus industry is the easiest tap to turn off. If a company wants to reduce costs in the short term, it stops buying new buses, and we have heard hon. Members speak about old stock today. There has been much investment in recent years, and that is a consequence of the partnership between the Government and the major operators. I ask my hon. Friend to allay manufacturers' slight apprehensions about the new systems, if she can, and to assure us that the transition will be fairly smooth.

Robert Goodwill: When I was elected to Parliament, I was delighted to be asked to serve on the Transport Committee. I had heard much about the chairmanship of the formidable hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) and about the hard time she gave those giving evidence, even Ministers, when they refused to answer the question. I very much enjoyed the evidence sessions that we held when preparing our report on bus services. I did not have much personal experience of buses, as I lived in a village that had one bus to our local market town, and it came at a very inconvenient time because it worked around the school bus, which took the same route. There was also a weekly bus to York.
	The Committee heard that London's success in promoting the greater use of buses had not been replicated across the country, and we heard how, following deregulation, problems arose from the fact that buses chased each other on busy routes, whereas on other routes, bus services were withdrawn because they were not profitable. In some cases, less profitable routes were changed and followed other routes in the same town. We also heard how cuts made at short notice affected people's working lives, their recreation activities and their shopping duties.
	There are a number of problems in encouraging people to use buses, and one of them is access to information. When people come to London from Yorkshire, they use the tube because it is fairly user-friendly. We have more to do in helping people to use the bus services in a strange town—for example, there should be better information at bus stops. More electronic information is being provided to let people know how long it will be before the next bus comes, because people do not want to wait at a bus stop in the rain not knowing when a bus will arrive.
	A move to quality contracts may well answer some of the problems, but the Government need to be careful to ensure that we do not feel the dead hand of regulation instead of enjoying the freedom of competition, which has in many ways led to improvements in certain bus services. It will be a challenge for the Government to address that problem, and it will be interesting to see how things develop in the areas where quality contracts are first introduced.
	It is particularly important to improve the bus services in some of our large towns. Ten years ago, we were told that the answer to our transport problems was better light rail systems. However, in Leeds the supertram has been scrapped, in Liverpool the Merseytram scheme is not going ahead, and the Metrolink extensions to Rochdale and Manchester airport have not attracted investment. Buses will have to fill those gaps. We must also consider the role of the traffic commissioners. I agree with the points made by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts), who is no longer in the Chamber; he was concerned that local decisions might be overruled by unelected traffic commissioners. If traffic commissioners are a benign and positive force in the process, all will be well and good, but it would not be such a good thing if they were considered to be holding back the wishes of local people.
	The UK has a long history of bus and coach manufacturing. Sadly, names such as Leyland and Duple are no longer with us, but we still have bus and coach manufacturing businesses running in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Scarborough. Plaxton was one of the main names in the post-war boom in bus and coach building, and its history dates back 100 years to 1907. It was traditionally a family firm that has been a major employer in Scarborough.
	Frederick William Plaxton opened a joinery workshop in Bar street in Scarborough in 1907. He later moved to Marlborough street and took over premises that were known as Castle works and began building bodywork for private cars and charabancs. During the first world war, Mr. Plaxton took over the former skating rink in Foreshore road to manufacture shell boxes and wooden aircraft parts. In 1936, a large new works was built in Seamer road and soon Plaxton coaches were on the road all over the country. Production was halted at the Seamer road works during the second world war and the site was turned into a munitions factory.
	Bigger and better coaches began to roll out of the works following the end of the war, and Plaxton began to attract big orders from companies like Wallace Arnold. In 1957 FW Plaxton died and was succeeded by his son, who took a big interest in the Plaxton building services side of the business. By 1970, the coachbuilding company had contracts all over the world and was producing 1,000 vehicles a year. Three years later the number had risen to 1,300 a year, accounting for a third of the entire UK bus force, but recession followed a few years later, bringing problems similar to those at ADL in Falkirk. In 1987 Plaxton closed down its Seamer road works and moved its site to Cayton Low road, which had gradually expanded over the previous 20 years.
	Plaxton later became part of the Henlys conglomerate. The Henlys group, which not only manufactured buses but was involved in motor retailing, ran into financial problems towards the end of 2000—problems largely related to its operation manufacturing yellow school buses in the United States of America. It was announced in the summer of 2001 that Plaxton was to shut in August that year with the loss of 700 jobs. That is a large number of jobs in a small place like Scarborough.
	The shock was compounded when it later emerged that many former and current Plaxton workers were told that their pension scheme had been wound up and they would receive only 30 or 35 per cent. of the value of their deferred pensions in the scheme. Plaxton's former owners, Henlys, had gone into liquidation and the pension scheme had an £80 million shortfall. Some workers had transferred from Plaxton pension schemes into the Henlys scheme, and those already drawing a fixed sum Henlys pension would not get the expected increases.
	A £20 million rescue package was put together aimed at saving 200 jobs, but the company that bought the firm, Mayflower, then went into administration and all its staff again faced redundancy. However, the firm's management stepped in to save the firm and completed a buy-out. Since then, the firm has gone from strength to strength and is now almost back to 500 employees. Its chief executive, Brian Davidson, was named 2005 director of the year for manufacturing by the Institute of Directors Yorkshire and Humberside division.
	I have been impressed by the enthusiasm, innovation and dedication shown by the whole team at Plaxton in pulling the market together. Despite heavy pressure in the early days from Spanish manufacturers who were receiving European subsidies, the customers have come back to the product made in Scarborough because of the quality of the fittings and of the product in general. It has led the way in innovation, producing coaches with lifts that can be used by disabled people, and the new Plaxton Primo smaller bus can take 27 seated passengers and 15 standing. It meets all the modern Euro 3 emissions standards.
	I hope that when the Minister comes to Scarborough, possibly to open the new Scarborough integrated transport scheme and to enjoy the pleasure of driving down the still single carriageway A64, she will find time to visit the Plaxton coach works to see how a phoenix has risen from the ashes of the previous disastrous business. I hope that as it celebrates its 100th anniversary, Plaxton will continue to go from strength to strength and bus manufacturing will continue in Scarborough.
	Finally, I should like to say a few words about heritage buses. I am sure that the Minister is aware that many local authorities, including London, are considering imposing punitive levies to prevent heritage vehicles that do not meet modern emission standards from coming into places such as central London. I hope that there will be exemptions for those buses, because it is important that people who travel in the modern, eco-friendly, clean and easy-to-use buses can still enjoy the experiences of yesteryear in travelling in our heritage vehicles, which many enthusiasts still keep on the road.

Mark Lazarowicz: I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this debate.
	I am in an unusual situation compared with most Members, in that I represent a constituency in a city where the vast majority of bus services are operated by a publicly owned bus company—Lothian Buses. It is not publicly owned because of any special legal dispensation that applies to the city, but because of chance factors, the nature of the city and, above all, good management, a good work force and a political determination by the local authorities that jointly own the company.
	The bus company has been extremely successful in terms of what it has meant for the public in the Edinburgh area and some of the surrounding local authority areas. There is an extensive network and a reasonably priced fare structure. We have a flat fare of £1, which covers journeys not only within the city but on routes well out into the surroundings areas. We had buses on new year's day and Christmas day, and we have an extensive night bus service. The fleet is modern, with an average age of less than seven years; that is partly why 75 per cent. of buses are accessible to people with disabilities.
	The services are popular with the local community. Of course, there are always occasions when people want buses to go to places where bus companies do not want to run them. Lothian Buses is an arm's length company, not a direct local authority company, and there are certainly occasions on which I have had interesting exchanges of views with it. Nevertheless, it is generally recognised by the public as running a service that is based in, and working in the interests of, the local community. The company is profitable. In the past couple of years, it has made substantial profits that have partly been repaid as dividends to the local authority, but it has also invested in bus services to provide further improvements. That has contributed to the 25 per cent. increase in bus passenger usage in the area over the past eight or nine years.
	Many of the responsibilities for bus policy in my constituency are devolved to the Scottish Parliament, but there are a couple of areas where our experience is relevant to the wider debate in the rest of Great Britain and where UK-wide policy has an impact on what is possible in my constituency. My first point concerns quality contracts. Legislation in Scotland provides for quality contracts in bus services. I understand that it is slightly easier to take up that option in Scotland, but it has not happened in Scotland any more than it has in England. That shows that it is important that the structure of quality contracts that is set up is not so complex that no one can ever make use of them. Experience in my city suggests that that should be taken on board in relation to the measures that the Government are going to introduce.
	My second point is that the whole concept of the quality contract rests on the theoretical foundation of a vibrant, competitive market in the bus industry, where different operators are waiting to seize the opportunity to compete in particular areas. However, that is a million miles from being the case in most parts of the country, where there is not, in any sense, a fully competitive bus industry. The Government must deal with the question of how we cope with a system that is based on a concept of franchising and contracts when there is not a fully competitive industry. One of the factors that I experienced in Edinburgh is that when a strong, publicly owned company and a major privately owned bus company operate in the city and some of the surrounding areas, there is mutually beneficial competition between the two. In such circumstances, a publicly owned bus company has to be on its toes because, if it is not, it faces the risk of competition from major private companies that operate outside the city and on some city routes. Similarly, private companies that operate outside the city know that they could face competition from a publicly owned company.
	The Government have a great opportunity to promote community bus services or give publicly owned bus companies a role in providing competition in a local area where the market provides none. I do not suggest that municipally owned bus companies should be the only model or type of operator throughout the country. However, in places where the market does not provide genuine competition to the monopoly operators, we should consider ways to facilitate community operators and local authorities—not only to operate residual bus services, but to provide opportunities for good quality services. That would require consideration at UK level because it relates to competition law.
	I want to raise two issues that are relevant to my constituency, but also relate to UK-wide policy. First, let us consider the cross-border arrangements for pensioners travel that will become national throughout England in 2008 and are currently national throughout Scotland. There is an anomaly, whereby a pensioner can travel from Newcastle to London, but cannot travel from Newcastle to Edinburgh under the new schemes because there is no link across the border. Some arrangements are in place for short journeys across the border but not for longer journeys. We should examine that. It is not simply a matter of journeys between cities and destinations near borders. As was said earlier, no one will take a bus from Cornwall to Orkney—for geographical reasons, if nothing else. However, pensioners from Orkney—or from Edinburgh—will come to London. They should be able to use the pensioners' bus pass facility in London, and London pensioners who go to Edinburgh or Glasgow should be able to make use of the free national bus pass arrangement.
	It would be a nice gesture in the third centenary of the Act of Union if the Government considered providing for the Scottish and English schemes to be interchangeable. I was delighted by the Minister's public commitment in his opening remarks to considering such a measure. It is the first time that I have heard such a public and positive comment from the Government on the matter. I welcome the Minister's statement, to which I shall revert in future—and I am sure that many of my colleagues on both sides of the border will also do that.
	Secondly, I want to consider zonal or area cards, which allow passengers to use a range of bus services and possibly rail and ferry services, too. Such cards operate in few areas of the UK. We tried to establish a zonal card in Edinburgh and we hoped that it would involve the rail companies. However, the negotiations became so convoluted that we gave up and did what we could with the bus companies, although I understand that the rail companies are now involved to a certain extent.
	The matter has Great Britain-wide implications because some of the rail services in my area are operated by companies that fall within the remit of the inter-city franchise, for which the Department for Transport is responsible. My experience in my area and current experience in London, where it is proving difficult to get some rail companies to take part in the Oyster card scheme, show the difficulty of achieving genuine interchangeability locally.
	The experience of many of our European partners is that if we want to encourage people to use public transport, one of the best ways of achieving that is to give them an opportunity to use different modes of travel through a genuine zonal card in their cities, towns and communities. If the Government could act to make that easier, it would be a major achievement that did much to encourage even greater use of public transport.

Julian Brazier: We have had a broad debate, informed by an interesting Select Committee report and a thinnish Government White Paper. I want to start by dealing with the various comments made about the Conservative Greater London Authority members' alleged policy to abolish the schemes for under-18s and for pensioners. The allegation about under-18s is misleading. Yes, it is true that they are considering abolishing the scheme, not least for reasons that two of my hon. Friends mentioned earlier, namely, problems with vandalism and antisocial behaviour. However, they want to replace it with a scheme that is tailored specifically towards schoolchildren. The allegation about pensioners is simply untrue. These matters are devolved in our party, so it is a matter for the GLA to decide what it does or does not do. None the less, it is worth putting those facts on record.
	One extraordinary feature that permeated the first part of our discussion today was the endless debate about the amount of subsidy. My party is in a policy formulation process at the moment, and I am not going to give any hard and fast answers on that issue. However, as the debate developed, it became clear that the issue of how that money is being spent—and whether it could be better spent—was of considerable concern to people on both sides of the House.
	The hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Graham Stringer) made some really vicious remarks about private operators, many of which might be well justified. He talked about subsidy junkies. The hon. Member for Rochdale (Paul Rowen) said that the past should not be viewed through rose-coloured spectacles, pointing out that public monopolies had been very unresponsive beforehand. The hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) made a number of important points about the possible role of quality contracts, and the fact that there had been no applications for them either south or north of the border. The Government have now acknowledged that they appear to have set up the system to fail. Some of their proposed changes appear sensible—for example, removing the requirement for the Secretary of State to approve the applications. As there have not been any such applications, however, that seems fairly academic.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, North (Mr. Scott) made an interesting speech in which he made several crucial points about people feeling safe on buses. The fact that they do not do so is one of the prime reasons why they are reluctant to use them. That applies particularly to women travelling at night. He also pointed out that more prosecutions could be brought if the CCTV cameras that are now being installed on a growing number of buses had film in them and worked properly.
	The right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East and Wallsend (Mr. Brown) gave a characteristically robust performance, in which he pointed out that there were many problems before deregulation. He also made some shrewd comments about the problems with the way in which the existing subsidy works.
	We have heard a litany of complaints today, including those from the hon. Member for Pudsey (Mr. Truswell). The hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Wright) took us back to the problems of deregulation. He also had one or two imaginative ideas on how partnerships could be made to work better. My party is strongly in favour of locally driven partnerships, and we welcome some of his suggestions. He also made some important points on driver safety and drivers' hours.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood) made some thoughtful points about his local situation, and dared to dream about monorails. There is no way that I, from this Dispatch Box, can make any promises on central Government money for such a project, but if a local authority has imaginative ideas and a number of players around who might be willing to put some serious money into them, good luck to them.
	The hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) was willing to admit that there are merits in competition, and asked some more difficult questions. I am looking forward to the Minister's winding-up speech! The hon. Member for Worsley (Barbara Keeley) made a very concerned speech about her constituents. Towards the end, the hon. Member for Falkirk (Mr. Joyce) and my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr. Goodwill) made some interesting points about the supply of buses. Britain is still a strong player in that regard. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) reminded us, as had a couple of earlier speakers, that it is rather anomalous to introduce concessionary schemes in England, Wales and Scotland, but no cross-border scheme.
	It is difficult to overstate the importance of the bus service to millions of people across the country. Buses are the most used form of public transport, and a lifeline for those who cannot afford a car or, in a few cases, choose to live without one. The hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich rightly made that point at the start of her speech. The bus service is also an important potential tool with which to cope with congestion, and in that context park-and-ride schemes are playing an important role in the city of Canterbury.
	Despite the noxious fumes that sadly emanate from the exhausts of most of our older buses, persuading more people to use the bus and other forms of public transport would be a key way of reducing carbon dioxide emissions. The Library tells me that the average bus journey produces, per person, roughly half the carbon dioxide emissions produced by a car journey. There are many reasons why buses are a good thing, from the very personal to the local to the global.
	One or two Members, although not as many as I expected, put the case for re-regulating the bus network. Many came very close to saying that they would like it to be re-regulated, and we look forward to hearing the Minister's responses. But a number of Members gave sensible reasons why we could not return to regulation. It is worth remembering a crucial fact that the Government have acknowledged: the use of buses was in continuous decline from the 1950s onwards. We had reached a point in the 1980s when they could not go on as they were, and although we can argue about the next route, I do not think there is any point in spending more time doing that. The buses were old, dirty, increasingly empty, becoming more and more expensive to run, and a burden on local authorities and ratepayers. Given rising prosperity and car ownership, a decline in bus patronage was almost inevitable. Since deregulation, the bus fleet has become steadily younger. The Library tells me that the average bus is now just over seven years old; a decade ago, it was nearly 10 years old. Fares have risen more slowly than council taxes, which used to pay for them.
	I think that Labour Members were wrong to focus on the late Nicholas Ridley as someone who was supposedly anti-public transport. In fact, the last thing Nicholas Ridley did, nine days before he died of excruciating cancer, was pen an article for  The Times—a very articulate, well-argued article, although I did not agree with it—explaining why he disagreed with the then Conservative Government's plan to privatise the railways. He was a thinking politician to the very end, and a man of colossal political courage.
	What is conspicuously absent from the White Paper is any clear commitment to making buses more environmentally friendly. As I said earlier, many buses continue to pump out the most noxious gases. There appear to be no incentives for bus companies to use cleaner buses, or to upgrade old buses to make them cleaner. That was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson) and by others, including the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane).

Chris Mole: Opposition Front-Bench Members have been ambiguous in respect of their enthusiasm for the arrangements in London, but London has, of course, been the primary area for the use of hydrogen buses. The Mayor has been able to test them out there, and the use of such buses is a long-term ambition of everybody involved in the industry. Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that the Mayor has probably gone further than anyone else in achieving the use of hydrogen buses?

Julian Brazier: The person who has gone furthest in respect of the development of fuel cells across a range of vehicles is President Bush; he is light years ahead of everybody else. The key current difficulty in the development of hydrogen-based fuel cells is that they are impossibly expensive. The hon. Gentleman's point therefore provides one more example of why London is so different from the rest of the country, as the Government acknowledge in their paper: he mentioned a very expensive project that only London could have trialled. In the very long run fuel cells have much to offer, but at present they are far too expensive.
	My party recognises that there have been some cases of serious bad practice on the part of some operators; we know that some companies fail to provide an acceptable quality of service. If the buses are dirty and not cleaned overnight, if the seats are ripped and not repaired, if it is barely possible to see out of the windows, and if no information is provided either on board or at the stop—a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby—then travel by bus is a confusing and unpleasant experience. More importantly, such bad practice causes potential users to be driven away and a vicious circle develops. It is not unreasonable to allow that a minimum standard of service and bus quality should be demanded.
	We know that in some towns and cities popular routes have been flooded with buses as operators attempt to bankrupt the competition on a handful of paying routes; Manchester has been mentioned in that regard several times. The conditions relating to the operation of a particular route could be made more stringent—the local authority could have such powers—perhaps by forcing operators to commit to the route for a specific length of time at a specific price to prevent them from simply dipping in and out of the market in a predatory fashion to kill the competition.
	We also know that where local authorities and bus operators work together, real success has been achieved. Several places were mentioned. We have a particularly exciting idea in Kent, which has a model Conservative authority. Starting in June of this year, Kent county council will offer cheap bus travel in two districts, Canterbury and Tunbridge Wells. There will be £50 a year cards for all 11 to 16-year-olds; that will be done in partnership with local bus companies. Canterbury is a bus service hub; it is also an educational hub for east Kent. The travel cards would allow 11 to 16-year-olds to use buses for a range of services, not only for education. If the scheme is a success, it is hoped that it can be extended across the county, and eventually to primary school pupils, too.

Stephen Ladyman: The hon. Gentleman is right that that is an exciting trial, but, given the usual criticisms of the Conservative party, will he also comment on why it was not decided to trial it in any of the Labour constituencies in Kent?

Julian Brazier: I cannot comment on west Kent, but I can say that the fact that Canterbury is the bus hub of east Kent—that point figured heavily in the discussions on the health service that came up an hour or so ago in the debate—makes it an ideal place to conduct a first trial. As the Minister knows, there is considerable poverty in the area I represent; for a long time, Whitstable and Herne Bay in the Canterbury area had an assisted designation.
	We hope that measures such as that which I have described will prove that partnerships can work as long as the local transport authority and the bus operators are prepared to have a constructive relationship. We also think that where local authorities agree to make improvements, such as putting in bus lanes and other priority measures that the operator will benefit from, it is reasonable for local authorities to insist that the operator makes some contribution to the public good.

Clive Betts: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I listened earlier to the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson) and tried to find one clear statement of Conservative party policy. Can the hon. Gentleman tell the House in simple terms what two things he would do differently from Labour Ministers if he were sat on the Government side of the Chamber?

Julian Brazier: I am coming to a couple of things that we would do, if the hon. Gentleman will wait just a moment.
	As a matter of good practice, partnership is likely to work more effectively where partners share information and data. The Concessionary Bus Travel Bill, which was touched on briefly, will fill in some existing gaps in the scheme. We hope that the scheme will be fully funded. Given the demands that the Government have placed on local authorities, the funding should match the demands. However, it is clear that partnerships are a better vehicle for achieving improved services than so-called quality contracts, although there is room for those, too.
	I will end by mentioning two areas of disagreement with the Government, one of which the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe touched on in his speech. We believe that local authorities should be the dominant figure, rather than the unelected bodies that could overrule their proposals. Secondly, local authorities should be given a greater say in fixing the concessions and arrangements that they want to make. In common with Members in all parts of the House, we see the bus as one of the best ways of people reducing their carbon footprint, as well as being a vital resource for less well-off families. We have heard a number of examples of initiatives being taken by local authorities, and I particularly welcome the imaginative initiative in Kent. Any measures that seek to get bus companies and local authorities working together will get a clear ride from us.

Gillian Merron: I am delighted to have the opportunity to respond to this very important debate. The future of buses is a subject close to the hearts of my Lincoln constituents, and to the hearts of constituents throughout the country. I shall begin by making some general points, and then deal with the specific issues that Members raised.
	It is the future role that buses will play in our communities, in the lives of our constituents for the better, and in our determination to tackle congestion and to contribute to a cleaner, greener Britain that led this Government to conduct an extensive review of the bus service and bus sector across England. As many Members know, in the past few months I have travelled around the country to see for myself and hear about the real issues that bus passengers, operators and local authorities face. I have been very pleased to see and hear about the real improvements that have been achieved. I congratulate all those involved on their hard work and on the intelligent partnerships that are making a real difference to the lives of people throughout the country.
	On the manufacturing front, I saw at Expo 06 in Birmingham impressive new British-built buses that break new ground—something that we can all celebrate. My hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk (Mr. Joyce) asked about opportunities for industry, and there are indeed tremendous opportunities as bus patronage improves and increases in future. I can tell him that I did indeed see the new hybrid buses from Alexander Dennis, as well as the Wrightbus hybrid double-decker, the Euro 4-engined buses from East Lancs Coachbuilders and—last but not least—the Optare Essex Pullman. That is another example of a bus that is no longer called a bus, but which provides an excellent service.
	Of course, we in central Government also have a strong part to play, which is why we are spending £2.5 billion a year on bus subsidy. Following the introduction of the new national bus concession in 2008, the Government will spend some £1 billion a year on concessionary travel for older and disabled people.

Judy Mallaber: In considering the welcome extension of concessionary fares nationwide, will my hon. Friend pay particular attention to counties such as Derbyshire, where we have an excellent gold card scheme covering discounts and many other concessions? As an attractive county, it has many tourists, but we will have to pay back the bus companies for concessionary fares and will not necessarily receive the funding to cover that. Will she take that into account?

Gillian Merron: My hon. Friend represents an attractive county that attracts many visitors and I can assure her that we are considering that very point in dealing with concessionary fares.
	Concessionary travel benefits some 11 million older and disabled people. Despite year on year difficulties in some areas with bus patronage, many communities want a better standard of bus services. Hon. Members have reported many difficulties, and that is why we published "Putting Passengers First" in December. It is important to re-endorse our key proposals as we move towards legislation, because the changes that will arise from the document will enable us to deal more effectively with the issues that cause particular concern to our constituents.
	The key proposals include making quality contract schemes a realistic option; working with stakeholders to develop a new performance regime; giving more opportunity to the community transport sector; providing enhancements to the existing arrangements for partnership schemes between local authorities and bus operators; and considering the scope for refocusing the current bus subsidy regime. Those are definite responses to the concerns that have been described to the House today.
	The proposals will modernise bus services for the better and mean a long-term, sustainable future for bus services. They have been formulated following discussions with operators and local authorities, and I wish to take this opportunity to acknowledge the support that we have received from all our key stakeholders. I am also grateful to the Transport Committee and its members for their work on the Committee's report on bus services. The Government's response to the report has been published today.
	We are in the process of further developing our proposals for an overall package of reforms with the transport industry, local authorities and other key interested parties. This debate will greatly inform the work that we are doing and the proposals will be included in the draft road transport Bill. We have heard today some of the reasons such legislation is important.
	Opposition Members made spirited, if somewhat rose-tinted, contributions to the debate. I know that the Opposition have apologised for the privatisation of the rail industry, and I wondered whether we might hear an apology for bus deregulation from the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson), but that was not to be. I am sure that many of my hon. Friends will be disappointed about that. I was delighted, however, that the hon. Gentleman acknowledged the increasing prosperity in this country under this Labour Government, and it is true that that has led to an increase in car ownership. The competition is between the car and the bus. Labour Members are committed to addressing that because many of the more vulnerable in our society have no choice and we have a duty to them. I confirm that the Government see a clear role for public expenditure on buses, but that must work hand in hand with the changes that we seek to make.
	The hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) made an interesting remark about young people on buses in London. I was somewhat confused, as I thought Conservative policy was to hug yobs and love them: now it seems that we must turf off them off the buses and snatch their passes away.
	It is important to get some perspective on the matter. Not all the young people getting free travel in London cause difficulties on buses, and we must not forget that many young people are themselves the victims of crime. I am worried that Conservative plans to abolish free travel for children and young people in London is disguised as an effort to save the rest of us. In fact, buses are one of the safest ways to travel, and the monthly figures for incidents show only small fluctuations year on year. I consider the Conservative approach to be a complete misrepresentation of the facts.

Julian Brazier: The Minister said that we proposed to remove travel passes from children, but I thought that I had made it clear that the intention of our GLA team was to replace the existing scheme with one aimed at schoolchildren. There have been many complaints about vandalism and yobbery on the buses by older teenagers, who can now travel on them free. That is why our GLA team is talking about introducing a pass for children.

Gillian Merron: A cut is a cut, as far as I am concerned. The matter is clear—the young people who have access to free travel under Labour would lose it under the Conservatives.
	I was rather disturbed when the hon. Member for North Shropshire described the contents of "Putting Passengers First" as "guff". The LGA hailed the bus reforms contained in the report as a "victory for common sense", and the passenger transport executive group welcomed the review as a "fresh start for buses". Moreover, the Confederation of Passenger Transport said that it welcomed the Government's recognition of effective partnerships as the key to better bus services, and considered that "a clear way forward" had been set. None of that suggests to me that the report is "guff".
	In addition, there is no evidence that deregulation arrested the decline in patronage. The hon. Member for North Shropshire may wish to look at "Putting Passengers First" again from that perspective.
	The hon. Member for Ilford, North (Mr. Scott) mentioned the No. 148 bus. I know that route well as, when younger, I spent many hours travelling through his constituency between my home in Dagenham and school. I was grateful for his support of Labour policies. I noted his wish not to be political, but whether one supports buses or not is clearly a political question.
	The hon. Member for Rochdale (Paul Rowen) was another to cause me some confusion. First he said that he wanted regulation, and then that he did not want to return to re-regulation. However, I remember him saying in a Westminster Hall debate:
	"I was pleased that at our party conference we were able to pass a motion committing the Liberal Democrats to the re-regulation of bus services."—[ Official Report, Westminster Hall, 10 October 2006; Vol. 450, c. 16WH.]
	That seems clear, but people in the House and outside it will want to know what the Liberal Democrat proposals are.
	I turn now to some of the points raised by Labour Members. My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley (Graham Stringer) asked for confirmation that the Government were up for the fight. I confirm that we are certainly up to do what it takes to improve buses for passengers.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody), whose enthusiasm for the Government's concessionary fares scheme is much appreciated, as is her understanding of the reality of people's lives and the effect that a good bus service can have, asked whether the Government would indemnify local authorities' transport authorities, should they be subject to legal challenge. Under the current system we cannot do so because the Secretary of State has a legal role in the process and has to give final approval. For future proposals, we cannot indemnify, but the system will be robust and fair and will allow operators to challenge decisions, as is right. That will mean that operators will have to bear the cost of irresponsible challenges and justify that to their shareholders.
	My right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth) was characteristically generous and gracious in his welcome of "Putting Passengers First". He asked about smart cards. The Department entirely supports the use of smart cards. We have done a great deal and will continue to work hard to promote the use of smart ticketing. He mentioned light rail. We have always recognised that trams can be effective in attracting people from their cars. We will continue to support light rail schemes where they are the best solution for local circumstances. It is important to say that bus options are likely to offer the most cost effective solutions on many corridors.
	My right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East and Wallsend (Mr. Brown) asked about concessionary fare funding for Tyne and Wear. I have been very involved with that. The Department for Communities and Local Government continues to talk to the relevant local authorities, including Tyne and Wear, about the matter. It is important to note that local authorities have long argued in favour of unhypothecated single pot funding and, indeed, wanted us to make it available through the revenue support grant. The existence of winners and losers, as has been illustrated today, is not unique to concessionary fares.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Chris Mole) described local circumstances arising from the actions of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat council. I regret the council's decision, but I commend my hon. Friend for being a strong voice for his constituents. I hope that the good people of Ipswich will express themselves, as I am sure they will, in the appropriate manner at the appropriate time.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Wright) raised the issue of trade unions and concerns about recognition for the work of bus drivers. I confirm that I am aware of the valuable contribution that bus drivers and all the staff who work in the industry make in providing services to millions of bus passengers. I have had talks with unions as part of the bus review and I am keen to see their continuing involvement.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Mr. Truswell) asked me to send a firm message from Government about operators who may in some way be fixing the reimbursement they receive. I am happy to send such a firm message. If there is evidence of operators abusing a system, local authorities are at liberty to reduce their funding accordingly. I would also wish to know of any such abuse.
	My hon. Friends the Members for Pudsey and for the Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) and others asked about quality contracts and how long it would take to get one through. That is an important question. The direct answer is that the estimate, if there was no appeal, is 14 months and, if there was an appeal, 20 months. It could be longer if there was a judicial review, although that would be unlikely. The time is the minimum to allow proper safeguards, such as those that my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe mentioned. There must be a public interest case made for removing any commercial freedoms. That is why we are proposing clearer criteria that will provide the right balance and allow for the public interest case to be made. I am sure Members understand that we must have a proper appraisal system for schemes.
	The basis for concessionary fare reimbursement—
	 It being Six o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT (SINGLE STATUS AND EQUAL PAY)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. —[Steve McCabe.]

Chris Mullin: I thank Mr. Speaker for reinstating my little debate after our accident last week.
	I want to raise an issue that has not had the attention it deserves and which is fast becoming a crisis in some parts of the country. Part of the reason for the lack of attention at Government level is, I suspect, because the issue has been perceived as a northern one and thus has not caught the imagination of officials whose view of the world tends to centre around London and the home counties. For the same reason, it has not until recently been high on the agenda of the Local Government Association. Furthermore, to be frank, the local authorities that have taken the greatest hit tend to be those that bent over backwards in the 1980s and early 1990s to protect their employees from the chill winds of Thatcherism. They resisted pressure to outsource and are now saddled with demands that cannot be met and which they would not have had to meet if they had privatised. One cannot help feeling that there is an element of "serves you right" in the initial response when the issue was first raised at national level.
	The good news, however, is that word of the impending disaster has reached Ministers. I hope that when the Minister for Local Government replies to the debate he will be able to demonstrate that he and his colleagues are taking the issue seriously; otherwise, I fear the impression will linger that Ministers are still in denial about the magnitude of the problem.
	Before I get down to detail, I want to make one more general point. The situation is an example of compensation culture gone barmy. What started as a laudable and legitimate quest for justice and equality has been perverted by the intervention of a particularly parasitic species of no win, no fee lawyers, in a form of madness that risks damaging the lives of the very workers who were supposed to benefit. What is more, it risks destroying the public services that those pressing claims say they want to protect. Local authorities face the prospect of being sued by one group of employees if they do not implement the agreement and by another if they do. Where unions have reached agreement on behalf of their members they, too, face legal action if they settle for anything less than the maximum. Far from reaching agreement, the no win, no fee lawyers are encouraging employees to take their case to tribunals, flooding the tribunals and enriching themselves.
	I single out for dishonourable mention a solicitor—Mr. Stefan Cross—who has made a speciality of pursuing claims against unions and local authorities without regard for the consequences. He would say that he is merely representing the interests of his clients. I say that ultimately he will damage the interests of his clients, not to mention those of the public at large, and that he is making himself rather rich in the process.
	The sequence of events is approximately as follows. First, protracted negotiations between unions and local government employees, during which I am told that it was argued by some on the union side that the exercise would prove cost-neutral, resulted in the signing of the 1997 single status agreement. The agreement envisaged a harmonisation of terms and conditions for the majority of local government employees, accompanied by a huge job evaluation exercise intended to sweep away injustices and anomalies that had accumulated over decades and replace them with a local government pay structure that reflected equal pay for work of equal value. The agreement was to be implemented by 31 March 2007—an honourable ambition.
	As the deadline approached, an awful truth began to dawn: there would be losers as well as winners. Indeed, there would be more losers than anyone had anticipated, some of whom would lose out very badly indeed. In Sunderland, for example, bin men and road sweepers found themselves facing cuts of up to 20 per cent. in their take-home pay. Nursery nurses found that they would no longer be paid during holidays. The council's hard-working gardeners found that they too were faced with big pay cuts. Needless to say, they were not happy. That gave rise to a new demand—that there should be no losers and that those faced with potentially catastrophic falls in income should be indefinitely protected.
	Reluctantly, and at great expense, the local authority in Sunderland agreed to four years protection. At that point, the lawyers moved in. First, they threatened action against councils who delayed implementation. Then, they took action against unions that had settled for anything less than the maximum. Finally, once protection for the losers had been agreed, they started encouraging those who have already been substantially compensated to sue local authorities, arguing that they should be further compensated in order to maintain parity with those who had been temporarily protected.
	One by one, Stefan Cross and his colleagues are unpicking agreements that everyone thought had been signed and sealed. I am told that the week before last, in Sunderland alone, more than 800 new claims were received, mainly from people who have already pocketed up to £9,000 a head in compensation, plus handsome pay rises, and who are now coming back for more. And so it goes on. No one knows where it will end, or how. As if that situation were not dire enough, somewhere along the line an employment tribunal decreed not merely that injustices should be put right and anomalies rectified, but that those found to have lost out should be compensated six years in arrears—as opposed to the two that had been the norm up to that time—thereby adding another huge sum to the local authority pay bills.
	The response from local authorities has varied. Some, like Sunderland, bit the bullet and sought to implement the agreement as swiftly and fairly as possible. The cost to local taxpayers so far in Sunderland is £15 million and could be tens of millions more if the worst comes to the worst. Sunderland has been advised that, on a worst case scenario, costs could touch £50 million. Some other local authorities have tended to bury their heads in the sand in the hope that it will all go away. One north-east local authority initially adopted a policy of paying out only in response to successful tribunal claims. So far it has shelled out nearly as much as Sunderland on a much smaller number of claims.
	Across the north-east, the total cost of claims could be as high as £300 million, but it is not just a north-east problem—far from it. The west midlands is said to be facing claims of nearly £1 billion, the north-west £740 million, London £123 million, and the south-west £100 million. Nationwide, the bill is estimated to be as high as £2.7 billion, but could eventually be higher. What is to be done? Emphatically, I am not suggesting that the Chancellor be asked to write out a cheque. No sensible person would do that. It has been suggested that the cost could be capitalised and paid off over 40 or 50 years, but that is a very expensive option and, in any case, insufficient to deal with a problem of this magnitude.
	My hon. Friend the Minister has recently announced a modest change to local authority accounting rules that would allow local authorities to defer making provision for equal pay liabilities. That is welcome but, as I am sure that he understands, it does not begin to address the magnitude of the problem. It has also been suggested and I understand recently agreed by Ministers that, at least as far as school caretakers and dinner ladies are concerned, the cost could come from the substantial surpluses that some schools retain. That may help some authorities, but it will inevitably give rise to the charge of unfairness, because some schools have surpluses and others do not. In any case, the majority of those involved are not school employees.
	None of that, however, addresses the real problem, which is that existing agreements are unravelling and the pit is potentially bottomless. We appear to have reached a situation in which, however much we agree with the principle of equal pay for equal work—as we all do—it is apparently impossible to move from an allegedly discriminatory system of pay to a non-discriminatory one. Indeed, I draw my hon. Friend's attention to the comments of Mr. Justice Elias, who presided over the tribunal hearing an equal pay claim involving Redcar and Cleveland borough council. He said:
	"it is important that employers with discriminatory pay structures should be able to manage their way out of them by entering into sensible job evaluation schemes, without thereby opening themselves up to the risk of cascading claims alleging past discrimination."
	In my view, and that of a growing number of local authorities, the only way out of the mess is to change the law to allow for a moratorium on claims for a transitional period, during which agreements reached in good faith would be allowed to take effect without being unpicked by the likes of Mr. Stefan Cross. I understand that the counsel's opinion that has been obtained indicates that that would be feasible. Ministers might also wish to consider whether it would be possible to legislate to reduce the time during which compensation could be paid retrospectively. I am hoping to hear that the Minister and his colleagues have reached similar conclusions and are, even as I speak, trying to identify a suitable legislative vehicle. A failure to do so would risk meltdown.

Phil Woolas: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) on securing a debate on one of the most—if not the most—important issues facing local government. Before I outline the actions and policies of the Government, may I start by addressing one of the charges that he made at the beginning of his speech? He suggested that the problem is not recognised by the Government, but I can assure him that that is not the case. It is probably the single most important issue in my in-tray, as it has been for some time, and it is being addressed across the Government. Nor is it, as he rightly said, simply—if "simply" is the right word even in this context—a northern or a north-east problem. It also affects not just local government.
	I concur that this is one of those debates that is of huge importance to local government and its employees. However, I suspect that it will not be reported significantly by the media, perhaps because the subject is too complicated for them. The issue does not get the column inches that it deserves, given its financial importance. I am also grateful that my hon. Friend has given me time to set out the big picture.
	The Equal Pay Act 1970, which came into force in 1975, allowed women to claim for the difference if they could establish that a male comparator doing the same job, or work of equal value, was receiving higher pay. The measure made a significant contribution towards the fall in the gender pay gap, which was 37 per cent. in 1970, but is now at 17 per cent. However, we recognise that pay discrimination is only one of the causes of the pay gap. Of course, the Government are fully committed to equality for all in the work place, as elsewhere, and the principle of equal pay for work of equal value. We have come a long way from the situation when the Equal Pay Act was introduced. At that time, equal pay seemed like a dream. It was not so long before that time that it was a rule in the civil service that women were obliged to resign from work when they got married.
	Local authorities, as employers, had agreed nationally with trade unions a process for establishing pay equality through the single status agreement in 1997 by the time of the 2004 local government pay settlement. The agreement drew together two strands. The first was a demand that manual workers on basic pay should work the same hours as white-collar staff. It had been a long-standing grievance of the trade unions that manual workers worked 39 hours, but white-collar staff worked 37.
	As well as single status, the agreement brought in a movement towards equal pay for equal value. That followed several case law precedents under EU directives and the Equal Pay Act to ensure not only that a women could not be paid less than a man for the same job, but that jobs that were predominantly held by women, but were judged to be of equal value to those predominantly held by men, would be paid on an equal basis, and vice versa. Indeed, I spoke this afternoon to one of the lead negotiators, who now lives and works in Johannesburg in South Africa. He told me that the question asked was why a person pushing a brush should be paid less than a person pushing a pen—or, as he put it, why someone frying a chip should be paid less than someone operating a chip. It took seven years to negotiate and it was believed to be the largest collective bargaining agreement in the UK's history. The key point was that the unions chose to negotiate, not to litigate, in order to allow councils to plan their finances—and good for them.
	To make it real, councils were and are expected to conduct job evaluations across the scope of their organisations and review their pay arrangements so that they match pay to the value of the work undertaken. The diverse spread of occupations in local government and the concentration of women and men in different types of work mean that establishing equal pay for work of equal value is a challenging process for the employers and the individuals concerned.
	I should emphasise, as did my hon. Friend, that central Government were not involved in those negotiations, as the employers are in local government. It is thus very much for individual local authorities, as employers, to ensure that their pay arrangements meet statutory requirements. I understand that the local government employers' organisation has been advising authorities for some time on how to ensure pay equality and has been recommending preparations, including setting aside reserves, which should be made to ensure that the transition can be managed affordably.
	As pay arrangements are the responsibility of individual employers and as they have agreed a framework process for implementing local pay reviews, this is not directly a matter for central Government intervention. I understand my hon. Friend's point when he said that the impression may be given or held that the Government are seeking to wash their hands of this affair—but we are not. We recognise the importance of this issue to the public and hundreds, thousands and millions of employees, let alone the local councils themselves. My point is simply that the Government are neither the employers nor responsible for negotiating this particular set of agreements.
	Local government is not yet in the position where it, as an employer, or its work force or we would like it to be, but we recognise that many authorities are making progress towards pay equality. A third of local authorities had, by mid-2006, implemented local pay reviews based on job evaluation, and we expect that number to have increased since then. The vast majority of the remainder are in the process of negotiating or implementing such reviews.
	I have said—and I repeat—that this is not directly a matter for the central Government. However, I am aware—and, of course, the Government are aware—that the cost and complexity of addressing equal pay issues in local government has, in response to developments in case law, become more challenging in recent years. We are not, contrary to what my hon. Friend suggested in a previous debate, in denial about the impact that this has had on local government. As I say, apart from the financial quantum itself and the future of local government finance policy, this is the most important item in my portfolio. We recognise that it can involve authorities in making some difficult management decisions and I have no doubt that there are some authorities for which the problems seem quite intractable, but that is not a reason to hand the problem to central Government.
	Let me put this issue into the wider context of funding for local government, devolution and pay. All acknowledge that Government central funding for local government has increased substantially and that no Government could be held responsible for a collective agreement to which they were not privy. It is important— especially if one espouses devolution to local government, as we do—that local councils manage their own pay pressures. It is for the Local Government Association and the local government employers' organisation, which conduct the pay negotiations, to consider the impact of equal pay pressures when negotiating local government pay settlements. It is for individual authorities as employers to ensure that pay bill pressures arising from work force changes or pay drift are carefully managed.
	Having established the problem facing local government within its wider context, I will move on quickly to the recent dialogue in which we have looked at how we can work together on this issue. Following recent judgments by employment tribunals, the LGA and others have recently made representations to the Government about the cost of back pay in respect of equal pay, and they have proposed a number of legal and financial solutions. Of course I have met the LGA and trade unions to hear at first hand about those issues.
	The Government are currently considering a range of options that increase authorities' flexibility to manage their equal pay pressures. It is important, however, that we do not slow down the process of implementing equal pay. One of the proposals made by the LGA is to increase the capitalisation limit, which constrains local authorities' ability to borrow to fund one-off back payments. Of course, we need to protect the Chancellor's golden rule that long-term borrowing should be used only to finance capital expenditure. In fact, that limit was raised to £236 million, including £6 million brought forward from 2005-06, for the current financial year. Applications for capitalisation from local authorities have been considered alongside competing bids, and on 31 January the formal capitalisation directions were issued.
	As I announced, and as my hon. Friend mentioned, in my recent written answer to his parliamentary question—I commend him for being the hon. Member who has put this issue on the agenda—I noted that we have recently consulted on an amendment to the capital finance regulations. Although not solving the problem, that change would help to allow local authorities greater flexibility in managing their financial pressures relating to equal pay. Under the current accounting rules, authorities are obliged to make financial provision for anticipated liabilities, as soon as they can be reliably estimated, rather than during the year in which they must be paid. The amendment would exempt equal pay back pay from that accounting rule for a limited period and allow authorities that wished to take advantage of that relaxation greater flexibility in managing their financial liabilities.

Chris Mullin: The technical changes that my hon. Friend is announcing are very welcome, but they do not address the core issue. As he rightly said, I have left him a lot of time, and I hope that he will get around to my two suggestions for legislative change. If, by any chance, he is not keen on either of them, perhaps he can suggest an alternative.

Phil Woolas: I thank my hon. Friend, who rightly pushes his point, and I will answer his question of course.
	Let me take this opportunity to state my gratitude to a number of local authorities—including my hon. Friend's local authority, which has played an important role in this issue—and other organisations for the thoughtful points that they have made about the proposed regulation change to which I have just referred. I am pleased to announce that our intention is to make that amendment in the current financial year. It is proposed that the new regulation will apply until the end of March 2011.
	The Government are fully committed to equality in the workplace, as elsewhere, and local government is making progress towards pay equality, within the framework that employers agreed with trade unions in 1997 and 2004. Local government, both collectively and as individual employers, is responsible for setting pay. Clearly, employers are responsible for meeting their statutory requirements. The issue should be seen in the wider context of a need to plan ahead.
	It is, of course, the case that the recent GMB  v. Allen ruling in Middlesbrough has affected the issue dramatically. Indeed, the trade unions and the LGA argue that it could jeopardise the ability of employers and unions to reach collective agreement in the interest of the greater good. I agree with them. Like them, we await with anticipation the outcome of the appeal by the union, and the Government do not rule out legislation to protect the ability of employers and representatives to reach agreements if that is desirable.
	It is, however, case law that presents the problem as well. On the crucial question of back pay, if there were a sample solution—there is not—such a route would not necessarily satisfy the policy that my hon. Friend seeks. First, there is the important point that many local authorities have already addressed the issue, and I must be fair to them and their taxpayers. Secondly, there is the very real point that it is not clear whether, even if desirable, a legislative solution would be possible.
	The Government are therefore reviewing urgently legal opinion on this matter, and I am grateful to those local authorities that have submitted their own opinion, but I caution against individual councils seeking opinion—as ever, it is lawyers who benefit the most. I recognise, of course, that addressing the requirement for equal pay is a difficult and costly process for local government, but it is not a new pressure. As I said, the pay legislation was introduced in 1970 and came into force in 1975. Many authorities have already implemented local pay reviews, and we are listening to the points made to us by the Local Government Association and others, following the recent employment tribunal judgments, to which my hon. Friend referred, in respect of the action against the trade unions, and the action against local councils and employers. To sum up, I thank my hon. Friend for raising this important issue.

Chris Mullin: If we have to resort to legislation—the Minister says that he has not ruled that out, and it is hard to see any alternative to legislation—what is his time scale?

Phil Woolas: As ever, my hon. Friend asks the pertinent question. The timetable is dictated by when the opinion is made available to us. I understand that the employment tribunal appeal is to be heard on 12 February, and it could be some time before the result of the appeal is known. Any timetable that might involve a legislative route would be dependent on the outcome of the appeal. That is why I say that we await the outcome of the appeal with great anticipation. The timetable, on which my hon. Friend pushes me, is dictated by that decision, and by the wider review of the legal opinion. As I say, although we have not been inactive on the matter, it is not clear at the moment whether legislative routes would attain the objective that we agree is desirable.
	The important point to emphasise and to record in  Hansard is that the Government do not rule out a legislative route, because we understand the point that my hon. Friend makes so powerfully about the unintended impacts of the collective bargaining agreement, which has been detrimental to some. We recognise the importance of the issue, and that the problem is not confined to one region. We are prepared to legislate if that is desirable, both in terms of the protection of collective agreements and in itself.
	The difference between equal pay and equal pay for equal value has to be recognised. The Government believe that it would be desirable to achieve equal pay for equal value in incremental steps, and that is inherent in the idea of collective bargaining. That approach would protect employees across the piece, and allow us to move towards ensuring a fairer, equally paid work force. It would be wrong to say that there are simple answers, and my hon. Friend acknowledged that. We recognise that the matter is a significant problem facing local government and its employees.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Adjourned accordingly at twenty-eight minutes past Six o'clock.